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Lowes Dickinson</title> +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + body { margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem .caesura {vertical-align: -200%;} + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 9pt;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12508 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Meaning of Good--A Dialogue, by G. Lowes +Dickinson</h1> +<br> +<br> +<center><b>E-text prepared by Leah Moser<br> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br> + from images provided by the Million Book Project</b></center> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<br> +<br> +<h1>THE MEANING OF GOOD—A DIALOGUE</h1> + +<h2>BY G. LOWES DICKINSON</h2> + +<center>FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE, AND AUTHOR OF A MODERN +SYMPOSIUM</center> + +<br> +<br> + + +<center><i>THIRD EDITION</i></center> + +<br> +<br> + + +<center>1900</center> + +<br> +<br> + <!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<center><a href="#DEDICATION"><b>DEDICATION</b></a><br> + <a href="#PREFACE"><b>PREFACE</b></a><br> + <a href="#ARGUMENT"><b>ARGUMENT</b></a><br> + <a href="#BOOK_I"><b><i>BOOK I</i>.</b></a><br> + <a href="#BOOK_II"><b><i>BOOK II</i>.</b></a><br> +</center> + +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="DEDICATION"></a> +<h2>DEDICATION</h2> + +<table align="center" summary="Dedication"> +<tr> +<td><span style="margin-left: 1em;">How do the waves along the +level shore</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Follow and fly in hurrying sheets +of foam,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For ever doing what they did +before,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ever climbing what is never +clomb!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is there an end to their perpetual +haste,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their iterated round of low and +high,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or is it one monotony of +waste</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Under the vision of the vacant +sky?</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thou, who on the ocean of thy +days</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dost like a swimmer patiently +contend,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And though thou steerest with a +shoreward gaze</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Misdoubtest of a harbour or an +end,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What would the threat, or what the +promise be,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Could I but read the riddle of the +sea!</span><br> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="PREFACE"></a> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + +<p>An attempt at Philosophic Dialogue may seem to demand a word of +explanation, if not of apology. For, it may be said, the Dialogue +is a literary form not only exceedingly difficult to handle, but, +in its application to philosophy, discredited by a long series of +failures. I am not indifferent to this warning; yet I cannot but +think that I have chosen the form best suited to my purpose. For, +in the first place, the problems I have undertaken to discuss have +an interest not only philosophic but practical; and I was ambitious +to treat them in a way which might perhaps appeal to some readers +who are not professed students of philosophy. And, secondly, my +subject is one which belongs to the sphere of right opinion and +perception, rather than to that of logic and demonstration; and +seems therefore to be properly approached in the tentative spirit +favoured by the Dialogue form. On such topics most men, I think, +will feel that it is in conversation that they get their best +lights; and Dialogue is merely an attempt to reproduce in literary +form this natural genesis of opinion. Lastly, my own attitude in +approaching the issues with which I have dealt was, I found, so +little dogmatic, so sincerely speculative, that I should have felt +myself hampered by the form of a treatise. I was more desirous to +set forth various points of view than finally to repudiate or +endorse them; and though I have taken occasion to suggest certain +opinions of my own, I have endeavoured to do so in the way which +should be least imprisoning to my own thought, and least +provocative of the reader's antagonism. It has been my object, to +borrow a phrase of Renan, 'de présenter des séries +d'idées se développant selon un ordre logique, et non +d'inculquer une opinion ou de prêcher un systême +déterminé.' And I may add, with him, 'Moins que +jamais je me sens l'audace de parler doctrinalernent en pareille +matière.'</p> + +<p>In conclusion, there is one defect which is, I think, inherent +in the Dialogue form, even if it were treated with far greater +skill than any to which I can pretend. The connection of the +various phases of the discussion can hardly be as clearly marked as +it would be in a formal treatise; and in the midst of digressions +and interruptions, such as are natural in conversation, the main +thread of the reasoning may sometimes be lost I have therefore +appended a brief summary of the argument, set forth in its logical +connections.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="ARGUMENT"></a> +<h2>ARGUMENT</h2> + +<p><i>BOOK I</i>.</p> + +<br> + + +<p>I. After a brief introduction, the discussion starts with a +consideration of the diversity of men's ideas about Good, a +diversity which suggests <i>primâ facie</i> a scepticism as +to the truth of any of these ideas.</p> + +<p>The sceptical position is stated; and, in answer, an attempt is +made to show that the position is one which is not really accepted +by thinking men. For such men, it is maintained, regulate their +lives by their ideas about Good, and thus by implication admit +their belief in these ideas.</p> + +<p>This is admitted; but the further objection is made, that for +the regulation of life it is only necessary for a man to admit a +Good for himself, without admitting also a General Good or Good of +all. It is suggested, in reply, that the conduct of thinking men +commonly does imply a belief in a General Good.</p> + +<p>Against this it is urged that the belief implied is not in a +Good of all, but merely in the mutual compatibility of the Goods of +individuals; so that each whilst pursuing exclusively his own Good, +may also believe that he is contributing to that of others. In +reply, it is suggested (1) that such a belief is not borne out by +fact; (2) that the belief does itself admit a Good common to all, +namely, society and its institutions.</p> + +<p>In conclusion, it is urged that to disbelieve in a General Good +is to empty life of what constitutes, for most thinking men, its +main value.</p> + +<p>II. The position has now been taken up (1) that men who reflect +do, whatever may be their theoretical opinion, imply, in their +actual conduct, a belief in their ideas about Good, (2) but that +there seems to be no certainty that such ideas are true. This +latter proposition is distasteful to some of the party, who +endeavour to maintain that there really is no uncertainty as to +what is good.</p> + +<p>Thus it is argued:</p> + +<p>(1) That the criterion of Good is a simple infallible instinct. +To which it is replied that there appear to be many such +'instincts' conflicting among themselves.</p> + +<p>(2) That the criterion of Good is the course of Nature; Good +being defined as the end to which Nature is tending. To which it is +replied that such a judgment is as <i>a priori</i> and unbased as +any other, and as much open to dispute.</p> + +<p>It is then urged that if we reject the proposed criterion, we +can have no scientific basis for Ethics; which leads to a brief +discussion of the nature of Science, and the applicability of its +methods to Ethics.</p> + +<p>(3) That the criterion of Good is current convention. To which +it is replied, that conventions are always changing, and that the +moral reformer is precisely the man who disputes those which are +current. Especially, it is urged that our own conventions are, in +fact, vigorously challenged, e.g. by Nietzsche.</p> + +<p>(4) That the criterion of Good is Pleasure, or the "greatest +happiness of the greatest number." To which it is replied:</p> + +<p><i>(a)</i> That this view is not, as is commonly urged, in +accordance with 'common sense.'</p> + +<p><i>(b)</i> That either Pleasure must be taken in the simplest +and narrowest sense; in which case it is palpably inadequate as a +criterion of Good; or its meaning must be so widely extended that +the term Pleasure becomes as indefinite as the term Good.</p> + +<p><i>(c)</i> That if the criterion of Pleasure were to be fairly +applied, it would lead to results that would shock those who +profess to adopt it.</p> + +<p>III. These methods of determining Good having been set aside, it +is suggested that it is only by 'interrogating experience' that we +can discover, tentatively, what things are good.</p> + +<p>To this it is objected, that perhaps all our ideas derived from +experience are false, and that the only method of determining Good +would be metaphysical, and <i>a priori</i>. In reply, the bare +possibility of such a method is admitted; but it is urged that no +one really believes that all our opinions derived from experience +are false, and that such a belief, if held, would deprive life of +all ethical significance and worth.</p> + +<p>Finally, it is suggested that the position in which we do +actually find ourselves, is that of men who have a real, though +imperfect perception of a real Good, and who are endeavouring, by +practice, to perfect that perception. In this respect an analogy is +drawn between our perception of Good and our perception of +Beauty.</p> + +<p>It is further suggested that the end of life is not merely a +knowledge but an experience of Good; this end being conceived as +one to be realised in Time.</p> + +<p>IV. On this, the point is raised, whether it is not necessary to +conceive Good as eternally existing, rather than as something to be +brought into existence in the course of Time? On this view, Evil +must be conceived as mere 'appearance.'</p> + +<p>In reply, it is suggested:</p> + +<p>(1) That it is impossible to reconcile the conception of eternal +Good with the obvious fact of temporal Evil.</p> + +<p>(2) That such a view reduces to an absurdity all action directed +to ends in Time. And yet it seems that such action not only is but +ought to be pursued, as appears to be admitted even by those who +hold that Good exists eternally, since they make it an end of +action that they should come to see that everything is good.</p> + +<p>(3) That this latter conception of the end of +action—namely, that we should bring ourselves to see that +what appears to be Evil is really Good—is too flagrantly +opposed to common sense to be seriously accepted.</p> + +<p>To sum up:</p> + +<p>In this Book the following positions have been discussed and +rejected:</p> + +<p>(1) That our ideas about Good have no relation to any real +fact.</p> + +<p>(2) That we have easy and simple criteria of Good—such as +<i>(a)</i> an infallible instinct, <i>(b)</i> the course of Nature, +<i>(c)</i> current conventions, <i>(d)</i> pleasure.</p> + +<p>(3) That all Reality is good, and all Evil is mere +'appearance.'</p> + +<p>And it has been suggested that our experience is, or may be +made, a progressive discovery of Good.</p> + +<p>In the following Book the question of the content of Good is +approached.</p> + +<br> + + +<p><i>BOOK II</i>.</p> + +<br> + + +<p>This Book comprises an attempt to examine some kinds of Good, to +point out their defects and limitations, and to suggest the +character of a Good which we might hold to be perfect—here +referred to as '<i>The</i> Good.'</p> + +<p>The attitude adopted is tentative, for it is based on the +position, at which we are supposed to have arrived, that the +experience of any one person, or set of persons, about Good is +limited and imperfect, and that therefore in any attempt to +describe what it is that we hold to be good, to compare Goods among +one another, and to suggest an absolute Good, we can only hope, at +best, to arrive at some approximation to truth.</p> + +<p>I. This attitude is explained at the outset, and certain +preliminary points are then discussed. These are:</p> + +<p>(1) Can any Good be an end for us unless it is conceived to be +an object of consciousness? The negative answer is suggested.</p> + +<p>(2) In pursuing Good, for whom do we pursue it? It is suggested +that the Good we pursue is</p> + +<p><i>(a)</i> That of future generations. Some difficulties in this +view are brought out; and it is hinted that what we really pursue +is the Good of 'the Whole,' though it is not easy to see what we +mean by that.</p> + +<p><i>(b)</i> That of 'the species.' But this view too is seen to +be involved in difficulty.</p> + +<p>II. The difficulty is left unsolved, and the conversation passes +on to an examination of some of our activities from the point of +view of Good. In this examination a double object is kept in view: +(1) to bring out the characteristics and defects of each kind of +Good; (2) to suggest a Good which might be conceived to be free +from defects, such a Good being referred to as '<i>The</i> +Good.'</p> + +<p>(1) It is first suggested that <i>all</i> activities are good, +if pursued in the proper order and proportion; and that what seems +bad in each, viewed in isolation, is seen to be good in a general +survey of them all. This view, it is argued, is too extravagant to +be tenable.</p> + +<p>(2) It is suggested that Good consists in ethical activity. To +this it is objected that ethical actions are always means to an +end, and that it is this end that must be conceived to be really +good.</p> + +<p>(3) The activity of the senses in their direct contact with +physical objects is discussed. This is admitted to be a kind of +Good; but such Good, it is maintained, is defective, not only +because it is precarious, but because it depends upon objects of +which it is not the essence to produce that Good, but which, on the +contrary, just as much and as often produce Evil.</p> + +<p>(4) This leads to a discussion of Art. In Art, it seems, we are +brought into relation with objects of which it may be said:</p> + +<p><i>(a)</i> That they have, by their essence, that Good which is +called Beauty.</p> + +<p><i>(b)</i> That, in a certain sense, they may be said to be +eternal.</p> + +<p><i>(c)</i> That, though complex, they are such that their parts +are necessarily connected, in the sense that each is essential to +the total Beauty.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the Good of Art suffers from the defects:</p> + +<p><i>(a)</i> That outside and independent of Art there is the +'real world,' so that this Good is only a partial one.</p> + +<p><i>(b)</i> That Art is a creation of man, whereas we seem to +demand, for a thing that shall be perfectly good, that it shall be +so of its own nature, without our intervention.</p> + +<p>(5) It is suggested that perhaps we may find the Good we seek in +knowledge. This raises the difficulty that various views are held +as to the nature of knowledge. Of these, two are discussed:</p> + +<p><i>(a)</i> the view that knowledge is 'the description and +summing up in brief formulæ, of the routine of our +perceptions.' It is questioned whether there is really much Good in +such an activity. And it is argued that, whatever Good it may have, +it cannot be <i>the</i> Good, seeing that knowledge may be, and +frequently is, knowledge of Bad.</p> + +<p><i>(b)</i> the view that knowledge consists in the perception of +'necessary connections,' Viewed from the standpoint of Good, this +seems to be open to the same objection as <i>(a)</i>. But, further, +it is argued that the perpetual contemplation of necessary +relations among ideas does not satisfy our conception of the Good; +but that we require an element analogous somehow to that of sense, +though not, like sense, unintelligible and obscure.</p> + +<p>(6) Finally, it is suggested that in our relation to other +persons, where the relation takes the form of love, we may perhaps +find something that comes nearer than any other of our experiences +to being absolutely good. For in that relation, it is urged, we are +in contact</p> + +<p><i>(a)</i> with objects, not 'mere ideas.'</p> + +<p><i>(b)</i> with objects that are good in themselves and</p> + +<p><i>(c)</i> intelligible and</p> + +<p><i>(d)</i> harmonious to our own nature.</p> + +<p>It is objected that love, so conceived, is</p> + +<p><i>(a)</i> rarely, perhaps never, experienced.</p> + +<p><i>(b)</i> in any case, is neither eternal nor universal.</p> + +<p>This is admitted; but it is maintained that the best love we +know comes nearer than anything else to what we might conceive to +be absolutely good.</p> + +<p>III. The question is now raised: if 'the Good' be so conceived, +is it not clearly unattainable? The answer to this question seems +to depend on whether or not we believe in personal immortality. The +following points are therefore discussed:</p> + +<p><i>(a)</i> Whether personal immortality is conceivable?</p> + +<p><i>(b)</i> Whether a belief in it is essential to a reasonable +pursuit of Good?</p> + +<p>On these points no dogmatic solution is offered; and the +Dialogue closes with the description of a dream.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_I"></a> +<h2><i>BOOK I</i>.</h2> + +<br> + + +<p>Every summer, for several years past, it has been my custom to +arrange in some pleasant place, either in England or on the +continent, a gathering of old college friends. In this way I have +been enabled not only to maintain some happy intimacies, but (what +to a man of my occupation is not unimportant) to refresh and +extend, by an interchange of ideas with men of various callings, an +experience of life which might be otherwise unduly monotonous and +confined. Last year, in particular, our meeting was rendered to me +especially agreeable by the presence of a very dear friend, Philip +Audubon, whom, since his business lay in the East, I had not had an +opportunity of seeing for many years. I mention him particularly, +because, although, as will be seen, he did not take much part in +the discussion I am about to describe, he was, in a sense, the +originator of it. For, in the first place, it was he who had +invited us to the place in which we were staying,—an upland +valley in Switzerland, where he had taken a house; and, further, it +was through my renewed intercourse with him that I was led into the +train of thought which issued in the following conversation. His +life in the East, a life laborious and monotonous in the extreme, +had confirmed in him a melancholy to which he was constitutionally +inclined, and which appeared to be rather heightened than +diminished by exceptional success in a difficult career. I hesitate +to describe his attitude as pessimistic, for the word has +associations with the schools from which he was singularly free. +His melancholy was not the artificial product of a philosophic +system; it was temperamental rather than intellectual, and might be +described, perhaps, as an intuition rather than a judgment of the +worthlessness and irrationality of the world. Such a position is +not readily shaken by argument, nor did I make any direct attempt +to assail it; but it could not fail to impress itself strongly upon +my mind, and to keep my thoughts constantly employed upon that old +problem of the worth of things, in which, indeed, for other +reasons, I was already sufficiently interested.</p> + +<p>A further impulse in the same direction was given by the arrival +of another old friend, Arthur Ellis. He and I had been drawn +together at college by a common interest in philosophy; but in +later years our paths had diverged widely. Fortune and inclination +had led him into an active career, and for some years he had been +travelling abroad as correspondent to one of the daily papers. I +felt, therefore, some curiosity to renew my acquaintance with him, +and to ascertain how far his views had been modified by his +experience of the world.</p> + +<p>The morning after his arrival he joined Audubon and myself in a +kind of loggia at the back of the house, which was our common place +of rendezvous. We exchanged the usual greetings, and for some +minutes nothing more was said, so pleasant was it to sit silent in +the shade listening to the swish of scythes (they were cutting the +grass in the meadow opposite) and to the bubbling of a little +fountain in the garden on our right, while the sun grew hotter +every minute on the fir-covered slopes beyond. I wanted to talk, +and yet I was unwilling to begin; but presently Ellis turned to me +and said: "Well, my dear philosopher, and how goes the world with +you? What have you been doing in all these years since we met?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," I replied, "nothing worth talking about."</p> + +<p>"What have you been thinking then?"</p> + +<p>"Just now I have been thinking how well you look. Knocking about +the world seems to suit you."</p> + +<p>"I think it does. And yet at this moment, whether it be the +quiet of the place, or whether it be the sight of your philosophic +countenance, I feel a kind of yearning for the contemplative life. +I believe if I stayed here long you would lure me back to +philosophy; and yet I thought I had finally escaped when I broke +away from you before."</p> + +<p>"It is not so easy," I said, "to escape from that net, once one +is caught. But it was not I who spread the snare; I was only trying +to help you out, or, at least, to get out myself."</p> + +<p>"And have you found a way?"</p> + +<p>"No, I cannot say that I have. That's why I want to talk to you +and hear how you have fared."</p> + +<p>"I? Oh, I have given the whole subject up."</p> + +<p>"You can hardly give up the subject till you give up life. You +may have given up reading books about it; and, for that matter, so +have I. But that is only because I want to grapple with it more +closely."</p> + +<p>"What do you do, then, if you do not read books?"</p> + +<p>"I talk to as many people as I can, and especially to those who +have had no special education in philosophy; and try to find out to +what conclusions they have been led by their own direct +experience."</p> + +<p>"Conclusions about what?"</p> + +<p>"About many things. But in particular about the point we used to +be fondest of discussing in the days before you had, as you say, +given up the subject—I mean the whole question of the values +we attach, or ought to attach, to things."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" he said, "well, as to all that, my opinion is the same as +of old. 'There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so,' So +I used to say at college and so I say now."</p> + +<p>"I remember," I replied, "that that is what you always used to +say; but I thought I had refuted you over and over again."</p> + +<p>"So you may have done, as far as logic can refute; but every bit +of experience which I have had since last we met has confirmed me +in my original view."</p> + +<p>"That," I said, "is very interesting, and is just what I want to +hear about. What is it that experience has done for you? For, as +you know, I have so little of my own, I try to get all I can out of +other people's."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "the effect of mine has been to bring home to +me, in a way I could never realize before, the extraordinary +diversity of men's ideals."</p> + +<p>"That, you find, is the effect of travel?"</p> + +<p>"I think so. Travelling really does open the eyes. For instance, +until I went to the East I never really felt the antagonism between +the Oriental view of life and our own. Now, it seems to me clear +that either they are mad or we are; and upon my word, I don't know +which. Of course, when one is here, one supposes it is they. But +when one gets among them and really talks to them, when one +realizes how profound and intelligent is their contempt for our +civilization, how worthless they hold our aims and activities, how +illusory our progress, how futile our intelligence, one begins to +wonder whether, after all, it is not merely by an effect of habit +that one judges them to be wrong and ourselves right, and whether +there is anything at all except blind prejudice in any opinions and +ideas about Right and Wrong."</p> + +<p>"In fact," interposed Audubon, "you agree, like me, with Sir +Richard Burton:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'There is no good, there is no bad, +these be the whims of mortal will;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What works me weal that call I +good, what harms and hurts I hold as ill.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They change with space, they shift +with race, and in the veriest span of time,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Each vice has worn a virtue's +crown, all good been banned as sin or crime.'"</span><br> + + +<p>"Yes," he assented, "and that is what is brought home to one by +travel. Though really, if one had penetration enough, it would not +be necessary to travel to make the discovery. A single country, a +single city, almost a single village, would illustrate, to one who +can look below the surface, the same truth. Under the professed +uniformity of beliefs, even here in England, what discrepancies and +incongruities are concealed! Every type, every individual almost, +is distinguished from every other in precisely this point of the +judgments he makes about Good. What does the soldier and adventurer +think of the life of a studious recluse? or the city man of that of +the artist? and vice versa? Behind the mask of good manners we all +of us go about judging and condemning one another root and branch. +We are in no real agreement as to the worth either of men or +things. It is an illusion of the 'canting moralist' (to use +Stevenson's phrase) that there is any fixed and final standard of +Good. Good is just what any one thinks it to be; and one man has as +much right to his opinion as another."</p> + +<p>"But," I objected, "it surely does not follow that because there +are different opinions about Good, they are all equally +valuable."</p> + +<p>"No. I should infer rather that they are all equally +worthless."</p> + +<p>"That does not seem to me legitimate either; and I venture to +doubt whether you really believe it yourself."</p> + +<p>"Well, at any rate I am inclined to think I do."</p> + +<p>"In a sense perhaps you do; but not in the sense which seems to +me most important. I mean that when it comes to the point, you act, +and are practically bound to act, upon your opinion about what is +good, as though you did believe it to be true."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean 'practically bound?'"</p> + +<p>"I mean that it is only by so acting that you are able to +introduce any order or system into your life, or in fact to give it +to yourself any meaning at all. Without the belief that what you +hold to be good really somehow is so, your life, I think, would +resolve itself into mere chaos."</p> + +<p>"I don't see that"</p> + +<p>"Well, I may be wrong, but my notion is that what systematizes a +life is choice; and choice, I believe, means choice of what we hold +to be good."</p> + +<p>"Surely not! Surely we may choose what we hold to be bad."</p> + +<p>"I doubt it"</p> + +<p>"But how then do you account for what you call bad men?"</p> + +<p>"I should say they are men who choose what I think bad but they +think good."</p> + +<p>"But are there not men who deliberately choose what they think +bad, like Milton's Satan—'Evil be thou my Good'?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but by the very terms of the expression he was choosing +what he thought good; only he thought that evil was good."</p> + +<p>"But that is a contradiction."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is the contradiction in which he was involved, and in +which I believe everyone is involved who chooses, as you say, the +Bad. To them it is not only bad, it is somehow also good."</p> + +<p>"Does that apply to Nero, for example?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think it very well might; the things which he chose, +power and wealth and the pleasures of the senses, he chose because +he thought them good; if his choice also involved what he thought +bad, such as murder and rapine and the like (if he did think these +bad, which I doubt), then there was a contradiction not so much in +his choice as in its consequences. But even if I were to admit that +he and others have chosen and do choose what they believe to be +bad, it would not affect the point I want to make. For to choose +Bad must be, in your view, as absurd as to choose Good; since, I +suppose, you do not believe, that our opinions about the one have +any more validity than our opinions about the other. So that if we +are to abandon Good as a principle of choice, it is idle to say we +may fall back upon Bad."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't say that we may; nor do I see that we must We do +not need either the one or the other. You must have noticed—I +am sure I have—that men do not in practice choose with any +direct reference to Good or Bad; they choose what they think will +bring them pleasure, or fame, or power, or, it may be, barely a +livelihood."</p> + +<p>"But believing, surely, that these things are good?"</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily; not thinking at all about it, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not thinking about it as we are now; but still, so far +believing that what they have chosen Is good, that if you were to +go to them and suggest that, after all, it is bad they would be +seriously angry and distressed."</p> + +<p>"But, probably," interposed Audubon, "like me, they could not +help themselves. We are none of us free, in the way you seem to +imagine. We have to choose the best we can, and often it is bad +enough."</p> + +<p>"No doubt," I replied, "but still, as you say yourself, what we +choose is the best we can, that is, the most good we can. The +criterion is Good, only it is very little of it that we are able to +realize."</p> + +<p>"No," objected Ellis, "I am not prepared to admit that the +criterion is Good. You will find that men will frankly confess that +other pursuits or occupations are, in their opinion, better than +those they have chosen, and that these better things were and are +open to themselves, and yet they continue to devote themselves to +the worse, knowing it all the time to be the worse."</p> + +<p>"But in most cases," I replied, "these better things, surely, +are not really 'open' to them, except so far as external +circumstances are concerned. They are hampered in their choice by +passions and desires, by that part of them which does not choose, +but is passively carried away by alien attractions; and the course +they actually adopt is the best they can choose, though they see a +better which they would choose if they could. The choice is always +of Good, but it may be diverted by passion to less Good."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said, "that that is a fair account of the +matter."</p> + +<p>"Nor do I. It is so hard to analyse what goes on in one's own +consciousness, much more what goes on in other people's. Still, +that is the kind of way I should describe my own experience, and I +should expect that most people who reflect would agree with me. +They would say, I think, that they always choose the best they can, +though regretting that they cannot choose better than they do; and +it would seem to them, I think, absurd to suggest that they choose +Bad, or choose without any reference either to Good or Bad."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "granting, for the moment, that you are +right—what follows?"</p> + +<p>"Why, then," I said, "it follows that we are, as I said, +'practically bound' to accept as valid, for the moment at least, +our opinions about what is good; for otherwise we should have no +principle to choose by, if it be true that the principle of choice +is Good."</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said, "then we should have to do without +choosing!"</p> + +<p>"But could we?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see why not; many people do."</p> + +<p>"But what sort of people? I mean what sort of life would it +be?"</p> + +<p>Ellis was preparing to answer when we were interrupted by a +voice from behind. The place in which we were sitting opened at the +back into one of those large lofty barns which commonly form part +of a Swiss house; and as the floor of this room was covered with +straw, it was possible to approach that way without making much +noise. For this reason, two others of our party had been able to +join us without our observing it. Their names were Parry and +Leslie; the former a man of thirty, just getting into practice at +the Bar, the latter still almost a boy in years, though a very +precocious one, whom I had brought with me, ostensibly as a pupil, +but really as a companion. He was an eager student of philosophy, +and had something of that contempt of youth for any one older than +twenty-five, which I can never find it in my heart to resent, +though have long passed the age which qualifies me to become the +object of it. He it was who was speaking, in a passionate way he +had, when anything like a philosophic discussion was +proceeding.</p> + +<p>"Why," he was saying, in answer to my last remark, "without +choice one would be a mere slave of passion, a creature of every +random mood and impulse, a beast, a thing, not a man at all!"</p> + +<p>Ellis looked round rather amused.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "you fire-eater, and why not? I don't know that +impulse is such a bad thing. A good impulse is better than a bad +calculation any day!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but you deny the validity of the distinction between Good +and Bad, so it's absurd for you to talk about a good impulse."</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> your position, Ellis?" asked Parry. "I've been +trying in vain to make head or tail of it"</p> + +<p>"Why should I take a position at all?" rejoined Ellis "I protest +against this bullying."</p> + +<p>"But you <i>must</i> take a position," cried Leslie, "if we are +to discuss."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why; you might take one instead."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but you began."</p> + +<p>"Well," he conceded, "anything to oblige you. My position, then, +to go back again to the beginning, is this. Seeing that there are +so many different opinions about what things are good, and that no +criterion has been discovered for testing these +opinions——"</p> + +<p>"My dear Ellis," interrupted Parry, "I protest against all that +from the very beginning. For all practical purposes there is a +substantial agreement about what is good."</p> + +<p>"My dear Parry," retorted Ellis, "if I am to state a position, +let me state it without interruption. Considering, as I was saying, +that there are so many different opinions about what things are +good, and that no criterion has been discovered for testing them, I +hold that we have no reason to attach any validity to these +opinions, or to suppose that it is possible to have any true +opinions on the subject at all."</p> + +<p>"And what do you say to that?" asked Parry, turning to me.</p> + +<p>"I said, or rather I suggested, for the whole matter is very +difficult to me, that in spite of the divergency of opinions on the +point, and the difficulty of bringing them into harmony, we are +nevertheless practically bound, whether we can justify it to our +reason or not, to believe that our own opinions about what is good +have somehow some validity."</p> + +<p>"But how 'practically bound'?" asked Leslie.</p> + +<p>"Why, as I was trying to get Ellis to admit when you +interrupted—and your interruption really completed my +argument—I imagine it to be impossible for us not to make +choices; and in making choices, as I think, we use our ideas about +Good as a principle of choice."</p> + +<p>"But you must remember," said Ellis, "that I have never admitted +the truth of that last statement."</p> + +<p>"But," I said, "if you do not admit it generally—and +generally, I confess, I do not see how it could be proved or +disproved, except by an appeal to every individual's +experience—do you not admit it in your own case? Do you not +find that, in choosing, you follow your idea of what is good, so +far as you can under the limitations of your own passions and of +external circumstances?"</p> + +<p>"Well," he replied, "I wish to be candid, and I am ready to +admit that I do."</p> + +<p>"And that you cannot conceive yourself as choosing otherwise? I +mean that if you had to abandon as a principle of choice your +opinion about Good, you would have nothing else to fall back +upon?"</p> + +<p>"No; I think in that case I should simply cease to choose."</p> + +<p>"And can you conceive yourself doing that? Can you conceive +yourself living, as perhaps many men do, at random and haphazard, +from moment to moment, following blindly any impulse that may +happen to turn up, without any principle by which you might +subordinate one to the other?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "I don't think I can."</p> + +<p>"That, then," I said, "is what I meant, when I suggested that +you, at any rate, and I, and other people like us, are practically +bound to believe that our opinions about what is good have some +validity, even though we cannot say what or how much."</p> + +<p>"You say, then, that we have to accept in practice what we deny +in theory?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you like. I say, at least, that the consequence of the +attempt to bring our theoretical denial to bear upon our practice +would be to reduce our life to a moral chaos, by denying the only +principle of choice which we find ourselves actually able to +accept. In your case and mine, as it seems, it is our opinion about +Good that engenders order among our passions and desires; and +without it we should sink back to be mere creatures of blind +impulse, such as perhaps in fact, many men really are."</p> + +<p>"What!" cried Audubon, interrupting in a tone of half indignant +protest, "do you mean to say that it is some idea about Good that +brings order into a man's life? All I can say is that, for my part, +I never once think, from one year's end to another, of anything so +abstract and remote. I simply go on, day after day, plodding the +appointed round, without reflexion, without reason, simply because +I have to. There's order in my life, heaven knows! but it has +nothing to do with ideas about Good. And altogether," he +ejaculated, in a kind of passion, "it's a preposterous thing to +tell me that I believe in Good, merely because I lead a life like a +mill-horse! That would be an admirable reason for believing in +Bad—but Good!"</p> + +<p>He lapsed again into silence; and I was half unwilling to press +him further, knowing that he felt our dialectics to be a kind of +insult to his concrete woes. However, it seemed to be necessary for +the sake of the argument to give some answer, so I +began:—</p> + +<p>"But if you don't like the life of a mill-horse, why do you lead +it?"</p> + +<p>"Why? because I have to!" he replied; "you don't suppose I would +do it if I could help it?"</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "but why can't you help it?"</p> + +<p>"Because," he said, "I have to earn my living."</p> + +<p>"Then is it a good thing to earn your living?"</p> + +<p>"No, but it's a necessary thing."</p> + +<p>"Necessary, why?"</p> + +<p>"Because one must live."</p> + +<p>"Then it is a good thing to live?"</p> + +<p>"No, it's a very bad one."</p> + +<p>"Why do you live, then?"</p> + +<p>"Because I can't help it."</p> + +<p>"But it is always possible to stop living."</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't"</p> + +<p>"But why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because there are other people dependent on me, and I don't +choose to be such a mean skunk as to run away myself and leave +other people here to suffer. Besides, it's a sort of point of +honour. As I'm here, I'm going to play the game. All I say is that +the game is not worth the playing; and you will never persuade me +into the belief that it Is."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear Philip," I said, "there is no need for me to +persuade you, for it is clear that you are persuaded already. You +believe, as you have really admitted in principle, that it is good +to live rather than to die; and to live, moreover, a monotonous, +laborious life, which you say you detest Take away that belief, and +your whole being is transformed. Either you change your manner of +life, abandon the routine which you hate, break up the order +imposed (as I said at first) by your idea about Good, and give +yourself up to the chaos of chance desires; or you depart from life +altogether, on the hypothesis that that is the good thing to do. +But in any case the truth appears to remain that somehow or other +you do believe in Good; and that it is this belief which determines +the whole course of your life."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "it's no use arguing the point, but I am +unconvinced." And he sank back to his customary silence. I thought +it useless to pursue the subject with him; but Ellis took up the +argument.</p> + +<p>"I agree with Audubon," he said. "For even if I admitted your +general contention, I should still maintain that it is not by +virtue of any conscious idea of Good that we introduce order into +our lives. We simply find ourselves, as a matter of fact, by nature +and character, preferring one object to another, suppressing or +developing this or that tendency. Our choices are not determined by +our abstract notion of Good; on the contrary, our notion of Good is +deduced from our choices."</p> + +<p>"You mean, I suppose, that we collect from our particular +choices our general idea of the kind of things which we consider +good. That may be. But the point I insist upon is that we do attach +validity to these choices; they are, to us, our choices of our +Good, those that we approve as distinguished from those that we do +not. And my contention is that, in spite of all diversity of +opinions as to what really are the good things to choose, we are +bound to attach, each of us, some validity to our own, under +penalty of reducing our life to a moral chaos."</p> + +<p>"But what do you mean by 'validity'?" asked Leslie. "Do you mean +that we must believe that our opinions are right?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said, "or, at least, if not that they are right, that +they are the rightest we can attain to for the time being, and +until we see something righter. But above all, that opinions on +this subject really are either right or wrong, or more right and +less right; and that of this rightness or wrongness we really have +some kind of perception, however difficult it may be to give an +account of it, and that in accordance with such perception we may +come to change our opinions or those of other people, by the +methods of discussion and persuasion and the like. And all this, as +I understand, is what Ellis was denying."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," said Ellis, "I was; and I still do not see that you +have proved it."</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "I have not even tried to. I have only tried to +show that in spite of your denial you really do believe it, because +a belief in it is implied in all your practical activity. And that, +I thought, you did admit yourself."</p> + +<p>"But even so," he replied, "it remains to be considered whether +my theory is not more reasonable than my practice."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," I replied; "but that, I admit, is not the question +that really interests me. What I want to get at is the belief which +underlies the whole life of people like ourselves, and of which, it +seems, we cannot practically divest ourselves. And such a belief, I +think, is this which we have been discussing as to the validity of +our opinions about Good."</p> + +<p>"I see," he said; "in fact you are concerning yourself not with +philosophy but with psychology."</p> + +<p>"If you like; it matters little what you call it. Only, whatever +it be, you will do me a service if for the moment you will place +yourself at my standpoint, and see with me how things look from +there."</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said, "I have no objection, and so far, on the +whole, I do agree with you; though I am bound to point out that you +might easily find an opponent less complaisant. Your argument is +very much one <i>ad hominem</i>."</p> + +<p>"It is," I said, "and that, I confess, is the only kind of +argument in which I much believe in these matters. I am content, +for the present, if you and the others here go along with me."</p> + +<p>"I do," said Parry, "but you seem to me to be only stating, in +an unnecessarily elaborate way, what after all is a mere matter of +common sense."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is," I replied, "though I have always thought myself +rather deficient in that kind of sense. But what does Leslie +say?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said, "I can't think how you can be content with +anything so lame and impotent! Some method there must be, absolute +and <i>à priori</i>, by which we may prove for certain that +Good is, and discover, as well, what things are good."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "if there be such a method, you, if anyone, +should find it; and I wish you from my heart good luck in the +quest. It is only in default of anything better that I fall back on +this—I dare not call it method; this appeal to opinion and +belief."</p> + +<p>"And even so," said Ellis, "it is little enough that you have +shown, or rather, that I have chosen to admit. For even if it were +granted that individuals, in order to choose, must believe in Good, +it doesn't follow that they believe in anything except each a Good +for himself. So that, even on your own hypothesis, all we could say +would be that there are a number of different and perhaps +incompatible Goods, each good for some particular individual, but +none necessarily good for all. I, at least, admit no more than +that."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?" I asked, "for I am getting lost again."</p> + +<p>"I mean," he replied, "something that I should have thought was +familiar enough. Granted that there really is a Good which each +individual ought to choose, and does choose, if you like, as far as +he can see it; or granted, at least, that he is bound to believe +this, under penalty of reducing his life to moral chaos; still, I +see no reason to suppose that the thing which one individual ought +to choose is identical, or even compatible, with that which another +ought to choose. There may be a whole series of distinct and +mutually exclusive moral worlds. In other words, even though I may +admit a Good for each, I am not prepared to admit a Good for +all."</p> + +<p>"But then," I objected, "each of these Goods will also be a +not-Good; and that seems to be a contradiction."</p> + +<p>"Not at all," he replied, "for each of them only professes to be +Good for me, and that is quite compatible with being Bad for +another."</p> + +<p>"But," cried Leslie, trembling with excitement, "your whole +conception is absurd. Good is simply Good; it is not Good for +anybody or anything; it is Good in its own nature, one, simple, +immutable eternal."</p> + +<p>"It may be," replied Ellis, "but I hope you will not actually +tear me to pieces if I humbly confess that I cannot see it. I see +no reason to admit any such Good; it even has no meaning to +me."</p> + +<p>"Well, anyhow, nothing else can have any meaning!"</p> + +<p>"But, to me, something else has a meaning."</p> + +<p>"Well, what?"</p> + +<p>"Why, what I have been trying, apparently without success, to +explain."</p> + +<p>"But don't you see that each of those things you call Goods, +oughtn't to be called Good at all, but each of them by some other +particular name of its own?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't want to quarrel about names; but I call each of +them Good because from one point of view—that of some +particular individual—each of them is something that ought to +be. I, at any rate, admit no more than that. For each individual +there is something that ought to be; but this, which ought to be +for him, is very likely something that ought not to be for somebody +else."</p> + +<p>On this Leslie threw himself back with a gesture of disgust and +despair; and I took the opportunity of intervening.</p> + +<p>"Let us have some concrete instances," I said, "of these +incompatible Goods."</p> + +<p>"By all means," he replied, "nothing can be simpler. It is good, +say, for Nero, to preserve supreme power; but it is bad for the +people who come in his way. It is good for an American millionaire +to make and increase his fortune; but it is bad for the people he +ruins in the process. And so on, <i>ad infinitum</i>; one has only +to look at the world to see that the Goods of individuals are not +only diverse but incompatible one with another."</p> + +<p>"Of course," I said, "it is true that people do hold things to +be good which are in this way mutually incompatible. But does not +the fact of this incompatibility make one suspect that perhaps the +things in question are not really good?"</p> + +<p>"It may, in some cases, but I see no ground for the suspicion. +It may very well be that what is good for me is in the nature of +things incompatible with what is good for you."</p> + +<p>"I don't say it may not be so; but does one believe it to be so? +Doesn't one believe that what is really good for one must somehow +be compatible with what is really good for others?"</p> + +<p>"Some people may believe it, but many don't; and it can never be +proved."</p> + +<p>"No; and so I am driven back upon my argument <i>ad hominem</i>. +Do not you, as a matter of fact, believe it?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't know that I do."</p> + +<p>"Do you believe then that there is nothing which is good for +people in general?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see what is to prevent my believing it."</p> + +<p>"But, at any rate you do not act as if you believed it."</p> + +<p>"In what way do I not?"</p> + +<p>"Why, for instance, you said last night that you intended to +enter Parliament."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"And in a few weeks you will be making speeches all over the +country in favour of—well, I don't quite know +what—shall we say in favour of the war?"</p> + +<p>"Say so, by all means, if you like."</p> + +<p>"And this war, I presume, you believe to be a good thing?"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Good, that is, not merely for yourself but for the world at +large? or at least for the English or the Boers, or one or other of +them? Do you admit that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said, "I am nothing if not frank! At present, we will +admit, I think the war a good thing (whatever that may mean); but +what of that? Very probably I am wrong."</p> + +<p>"Very probably you are; but that is not the point. The main +thing is, that you admit that it is possible to be wrong or right +at all; that there is something to be wrong or right about."</p> + +<p>"But I don't know that I do admit it, or, at any rate, that I +shall always admit it. Probably, after changing my opinions again +and again, I shall come to the conclusion that none of them are +worth anything at all; that, in fact, there's nothing to have an +opinion about; and then I shall retire from politics altogether; +and then—then how will you get hold of me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," I replied, "easily enough! For you will still continue, I +suppose, to do some kind of work, and work which will necessarily +affect innumerable people besides yourself; and you will believe, I +presume, that somehow or other the work you do is contributing to +some general Good?"</p> + +<p>"'You presume'! you do indeed presume! Suppose I believe nothing +of the kind? Suppose I deny altogether a general Good?"</p> + +<p>"We will suppose it, if you like," I said. "And now let us go on +to examine the consequences of the supposition."</p> + +<p>"By all means!" he said, "proceed!"</p> + +<p>"Well," I began, "since you are still living in society, (for +that, I suppose, you allow me to assume,) you are, by the nature of +the case, interchanging with others innumerable offices. At the +same time, on the supposition we are adopting, that you deny a +general Good, your only object in this interchange will be your own +Good, (in which you admit that you do believe.) If, for example, +you are a doctor, your aim, at the highest, is to develop yourself, +to increase your knowledge, your skill, your self-control; at the +lowest, it is to accumulate a fortune; but in neither case can your +purpose be to alleviate or cure disease, nor to contribute to the +advance of science; for that would be to suppose that these ends, +although they purport to be general, nevertheless are somehow good, +which is the hypothesis we were excluding. Similarly, if you are a +lawyer, you will not set your heart on doing justice, or perfecting +the law; such ends as these for you are mere illusions; for even if +justice exist at all, it certainly is not a Good, for if it were, +it would be a Good for all, and, as we agree, there is no such +thing. Men like Bentham, therefore, to you will be mere +visionaries, and the legal system as a whole will have no sense or +purport, except so far as it contributes to sharpen your wits and +fill your pocket And so, in general, with all professions and +occupations; whichever you may adopt, you will treat it merely as a +means to your own Good; and since you have no Good which is also +common to other men, you will use these others without scruple to +further what you conceive to be your own advantage, without +necessarily paying any regard to what they may conceive to be +theirs."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "and why not?"</p> + +<p>"I don't ask 'why not'?" I replied, "I ask merely whether it +would be so? whether you do, as a matter of fact, conceive it +possible that you should ever adopt such an attitude?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no," he admitted, "I don't think it is; but that is an +idiosyncrasy of mine; and I have no doubt there are plenty of other +men who are precisely in the position you describe. Take, for +example, a man like the late Jay Gould. Do you suppose that he, in +his business operations, ever had any regard for anything except +his own personal advantage? Do you suppose he cared how many people +he ruined? Do you suppose he cared even whether he ruined his +country, except so far as such ruin might interfere with his own +profit? Or look again at the famous Mr. Leiter of Chicago! What do +you suppose it mattered to him that he might be starving half the +world, and imperilling the governments of Europe? It was enough for +him that he should realize a fortune; of all the rest, I suppose, +he washed his hands. He and men like him adopt, I have no doubt, +precisely the position which you are trying to show is +impossible."</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "I am not trying to show that it is impossible in +general; I am only trying to show that it is impossible for you. +And my object is to suggest that if a man does deny a general Good, +he denies it, as I say, at his peril. If his denial is genuine, and +not merely verbal, it will lead him to conduct of the kind I have +described."</p> + +<p>"But surely," interrupted Leslie, "you have no right to assume +that a disbelief in a general Good, however genuine, necessarily +involves a sheer egoism in conduct? For a man might find that his +own Good consisted in furthering the Good of other people; and in +that case of course he will try to further it."</p> + +<p>"But," I replied, "on our hypothesis there is no Good of other +people. Each individual, we agreed, has his Good, but there is no +Good common to all. And thus we could have no guarantee that in +furthering the Good of one we are also furthering that of others. +So that even supposing a man to believe that his own Good consists +in furthering the Good of others, yet he will not be able to put +his belief into practice, but at most will be able to help some one +man, with the likelihood that in so doing he is thwarting and +injuring many others. Though, therefore, he may not wish to be an +egoist, yet he cannot work for a common Good; and that simply +because there is no common Good to work for."</p> + +<p>At this point Parry, who had been sitting silent during the +discussion, probably because of its somewhat abstract character, +suddenly broke in upon it as follows. He had a great fund of +optimism and what is sometimes called common sense, which to me was +rather pleasant and refreshing, though some of the others, and +especially Leslie and Ellis, were apt, I think, to find it +irritating. His present speech was characteristic of his +manner.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he began, "there you touch upon the point which has +vitiated your argument throughout. You seem to assume that because +every man has his own Good, and there is no Good we can affirm to +be common to all, therefore these individual Goods are incompatible +one with another, so that a man who is intent on his own Good is +necessarily hindering, or, at least, not helping, other people who +are intent on theirs. But I believe, and my view is borne out by +all experience, that exactly the opposite is the case. Every man, +in pursuing his own advantage, is also enabling the rest to pursue +theirs. The world, if you like to put it so, is a world of egoists; +but a world constructed with such exquisite art, that the egoism of +one is not only compatible with, but indispensable to that of +another. On this principle all society rests. The producer, seeking +his own profit, is bound to satisfy the consumer; the capitalist +cannot exist without supporting the labourer; the borrower and +lender are knit by the closest ties of mutual advantage; and so +with all the ranks and divisions of mankind, social, political, +economic, or what you will. Balanced, one against the other, in +delicate counterpoise, in subtlest interaction of part with part, +they sweep on in one majestic system, an equilibrium for ever +disturbed, yet ever recovering itself anew, created, it is true, +and maintained by countless individual impulses, yet summing up and +reflecting all of these in a single, perfect, all-harmonious whole. +And when we consider——"</p> + +<p>But here he was interrupted by a kind of groan from Audubon; and +Ellis, seeing his opportunity, broke in ironically, as follows:</p> + +<p>"The theme, my dear Parry, is indeed a vast one, and suggests +countless developments. When, for example, we consider (to borrow +your own phrase) the reciprocal relations of the householder and +the thief, of the murderer and his victim, of the investor and the +fraudulent company-promoter; when, turning from these private +examples, we cast our eyes on international relations, when we +observe the perfect accord of interest between all the great powers +in the far East; when we note the smooth harmonious working of that +flawless political machine so aptly named the European Concert, +each member pursuing its own advantage, yet co-operating without +friction to a common end; or when, reverting to the economic +sphere, we contemplate the exquisite adjustment that prevails +between the mutual interest of labour and capital—an +adjustment broken only now and again by an occasional disturbance, +just to show that the centre of gravity is changing; when we +observe the World Trust quietly, without a creak or a groan, +annihilating the individual producer; or when, to take the sublime +example which has already been quoted, we perceive a single +individual, in the pursuit of his own Good, positively co-operating +with revolutionists on the other side of the globe, and +contributing, by the process of starvation, to the deliverance of a +great and oppressed people—if indeed, in such a world as +ours, anyone can be said to be oppressed—when, my dear Parry, +we contemplate these things, then—then—words fail me! +Finish the sentence as you only can."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Parry, good-naturedly enough, "of course I know very +well you can make anything ridiculous if you like. But I still +maintain that we must take broad views of these matters, and that +the position adopted is substantially correct, if you take long +enough periods of time. Every man in the long run by pursuing his +own Good does contribute also to the Good of others."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, anxious to keep the argument to the main point, +"let us admit for the moment that it is so. You assert, then, that +everyone's Good is distinct from everyone else's, and that there is +no common Good; but that each one's pursuit of his own Good is +essential to the realization of the Good of all the rest"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said; "roughly, that is the kind of thing I +believe."</p> + +<p>"Well, but," I continued, "on that system there is at least one +thing which we shall have to call a common Good."</p> + +<p>"And what is that?"</p> + +<p>"Society itself! For society is the condition indispensable to +all alike for the realization of any individual Good; and a common +condition of Good is, I suppose, in a sense, a common Good."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "I suppose, in a sense, it is."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "I want no larger admission. For under 'society' +what is not included! Sanction society, and you sanction, or at +least you admit the possibility of a sanction for every kind of +common activity and end; and the motives of men in undertaking +these common activities become a matter of comparative +indifference. Whatever they are consciously aiming at, whether it +be their own Good, or the Good of all, or, as is more probable, a +varying mixture of both, the fact remains that they do, and we do, +admit a common Good, the maintenance and development of society +itself. And that is all I was concerned to get you to agree +to."</p> + +<p>"But," said Leslie, "do you really think that there is no common +Good except this, which you yourself admit to be rather a condition +of Good than Good itself?"</p> + +<p>"No," I replied, "that is not my view. I do not, myself, regard +society as nothing but a condition of the realization of +independent, individual Goods. On the contrary, I think that the +Good of each individual consists in his relations with other +individuals. But this I do not know that I am in a position to +establish. Meantime, however, we can, I think, maintain, that few +candid men, understanding the issue, will really deny altogether a +common Good; for they will have to admit that in society we have at +the very least a common condition of Good."</p> + +<p>"But still," objected Leslie, "even so we have no proof that +there is a common Good, but only that most civilized men, if +pressed, would probably admit one."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," I replied, "and I pretend nothing more. I have not +attempted to prove that there is a common Good, nor even that it is +impossible not to believe in one. I merely wished to show, as +before, that if a man disbelieves, he disbelieves, so to speak, at +his own peril. And to sum up the argument, what I think we have +shown is, that to deny a common Good is, in the first place, to +deny to one's life and action all worth except what is bound up +with one's own Good, to the complete exclusion of any Good of all. +In the second place, it is to deny all worth to every public and +social institution—to religion, law, government, the family, +all activities, in a word, which contribute to and make up what we +call society. Further, it is to empty history, which is the record +of society, of its main interest and significance, and in +particular to eliminate the idea of progress; for progress, of +course, implies a common Good towards which progress is directed. +In brief, it is to strip a man of his whole social self, and reveal +him a poor, naked, shivering Ego, implicated in relations from +which he may derive what advantage he can for himself, but which, +apart from that advantage, have no point or purport or aim; it is +to make him an Egoist even against his will; leaving him for his +solitary ideal a cult of self-development, deprived of its main +attraction by its dissociation from the development of others. Now, +if any man, having a full sense of what is implied in his words (a +sense, not merely conceived by the intellect, but felt, as it were, +in every nerve and tissue) will seriously and deliberately deny +that he believes in a common Good; if he will not merely make the +denial with his lips, but actually carry it out in his daily life, +adjusting to his verbal proposition his habitual actions, feelings, +and thoughts; if he will and can really and genuinely do this, then +I, for my part, am willing to admit that I cannot prove him to be +wrong. All I can do is to set my experience against his, and to +appeal to the experience of others; and we must wait till further +experience on either side leads (if it ever is to lead) to an +agreement. But, on the other hand, if a man merely makes the denial +with his lips, because, perhaps, he conceives it impossible to +prove the opposite, or because he sees that what is good cannot be +defined beyond dispute, or whatever other plausible reason he may +have; and if, while he persists in his denial, he continues to act +as if the contrary were true, taking part with zest and enthusiasm +in the common business of life, pushing causes, supporting +institutions, subscribing to societies, and the like, and that +without any pretence that in so doing he is seeking merely his own +Good—in that case I shall take leave to think that he does +not really believe what he says (though no doubt he may genuinely +think he does), and I shall take his life and his habits, the whole +tissue of his instincts and desires, as a truer index to his real +opinion than the propositions he enunciates with his lips."</p> + +<p>"But," cried Leslie, "that is a mere appeal to prejudice! Of +course we all want to believe that there is a common Good; the +question is, whether we have a right to."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," I replied, "but the question I wished to raise was +the more modest one, whether we can help it? Whether we have a +right or no is another matter, more difficult and more profound +than I care to approach at present. If, indeed, it could be proved +beyond dispute to the reason, either that certain things are good +or that they are not, there would be no place for such discussions +as this. But, it appears, such proof has not yet been +given,—or do you think it has?"</p> + +<p>"No!" he said, "but I think it might be and must be!"</p> + +<p>"Possibly," I said, "but meantime, perhaps, it is wiser to fall +back on this kind of reasoning which you call an appeal to +prejudice,—and so no doubt in a sense it is; for it is an +appeal to the passion men have to find worth in their lives, and +their refusal to accept any view by which such worth is denied. To +anyone who refuses to accept any judgment about what is good, I +prove, or endeavour to prove, that such refusal cuts away the whole +basis of his life; and I ask him if he is prepared to accept that +consequence. If he affirms that he is, and affirms it not only with +his lips but in his action, then I have no more to say; but if he +cannot accept the consequences, then, I suppose, he will reconsider +the premisses, and admit that he does really believe that judgments +about what is good may be true, and, provisionally, that his own +are true, or at least as true as he can make them, and that he does +in fact accept and act upon them as true, and intends to do so +until he is convinced that they are false. And this attitude of his +feelings, you may call, if you like, an attitude of faith; it is, I +think, the attitude most men would adopt if they were pressed home +upon the subject; and to my mind it is reasonable enough, and +rather to be praised than to be condemned."</p> + +<p>"I don't think so at all," cried Leslie, "I consider it very +unsatisfactory."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said Parry, "and for my part, I can't see what you're +all driving at. You seem to be making a great fuss about +nothing."</p> + +<p>"Oh no!" retorted Ellis, "not about nothing! about a really +delightful paradox! We have arrived at the conclusion that we are +bound to believe in Good, but that we haven't the least notion what +it is!"</p> + +<p>"Exactly!" said Parry, "and that is just what I dispute!"</p> + +<p>"What? That we are bound to believe in Good?"</p> + +<p>"No! But that we don't know what Good is, or rather, what things +are good."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I cried, "do you really think we do know? I wish I could +think that! The trouble with me is, that while I seem to see that +we are bound to trust our judgments about what is good, yet I +cannot see that we know that they are true. Indeed, from their very +diversity, it seems as if they could not all be true. My only hope +is, that perhaps they do all contain some truth, although they may +contain falsehood as well."</p> + +<p>"But surely," said Parry, "you exaggerate the difficulty. All +the confusion seems to me to arise from the assumption that we +can't see what lies under our noses. I don't believe, myself, that +there is all this difficulty in discovering Good. Philosophers +always assume, as you seem to be doing, that it is all a matter of +opinion and reasoning, and that opinions and reasons really +determine conduct. Whereas in fact, I believe, conduct is +determined, at least in essentials, by something very much more +like instinct. And it is to this instinct which, by the nature of +the case, is simple and infallible, that we ought to look to tell +us what is good, and not to our reason, which, as you admit +yourself, can only land us in contradictory judgments. I know, of +course, that you have a prejudice against any such view."</p> + +<p>"Not at all!" I said, "if only I could understand it. I should +be glad of any simple and infallible criterion; only I have never +yet been able to find one."</p> + +<p>"That, I believe, is because you look for it in the wrong place; +or, perhaps, because you look for it instead of simply seeing it. +You will never discover what is good by any process of rational +inquiry. It's a matter of direct perception, above and beyond all +argument."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is," I said, "but surely not of perception, as you +said, simple and infallible?"</p> + +<p>"If not that, at least sufficiently clear and distinct for all +practical purposes. And to my mind, all discussion about Good is +for this reason rather factitious and unreal. I don't mean to say, +of course, that it isn't amusing, among ourselves, to pass an hour +or two in this kind of talk; but I should think it very unfortunate +if the habit of it were to spread among the mass of men. For +inquiry does tend in the long run to influence opinion, and +generally to influence it in the wrong way; whereas, if people +simply go on following their instinct, they are much more likely to +do what is right, than if they try to act on so-called rational +grounds."</p> + +<p>"But," cried Leslie, who during this speech had found obvious +difficulty in containing himself, "what is this instinct which you +bid us follow? What authority has it? What validity? What is its +content? What <i>is</i> it, anyhow, that it should be set up in +this way above reason?"</p> + +<p>"As to authority," replied Parry, "the point about an instinct +is, that its authority is unimpeachable. It commands and we obey; +there's no question about it."</p> + +<p>"But there <i>is</i> question about the content of Good."</p> + +<p>"I should rather say that we make question. But, after all, how +small a part of our life is affected by our theories! As a rule, we +act simply and without reflection; and such action is the safest +and most prosperous."</p> + +<p>"The safest and most prosperous! But how do you know that? What +standard are you applying? Where do you get it from?"</p> + +<p>"From common sense."</p> + +<p>"And what is common sense?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a kind of instinct too!"</p> + +<p>"A kind of instinct? How many are there then? And does every +instinct require another to justify it, and so <i>ad +infinitum</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Logomachy, my dear Leslie!" cried Parry, with imperturbable +good-humour. He had a habit of treating Leslie as if he were a +clever child.</p> + +<p>"But really, Parry," I interposed, "this is the critical point. +Is it your view that an instinct is its own sufficient +justification, or does it require justification by something +else?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "it justifies itself. Take, for example, a strong +instinct, like that of self-preservation. How completely it stands +above all criticism! Not that it cannot be criticised in a kind of +dilettante, abstract way; but in the moment of action the criticism +simply disappears in face of the overwhelming fact it +challenges."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say, then," said Leslie, "that because this +instinct is so strong therefore it is always good to follow +it?"</p> + +<p>"I should say so, generally speaking."</p> + +<p>"How is it, then, that you consider it disgraceful that a man +should run away in battle?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" replied Parry, "that is a very interesting point! There +you get a superposition of the social upon the merely individual +instinct."</p> + +<p>"And how does that come about?"</p> + +<p>"That may be a matter of some dispute; but it has been +ingeniously explained as follows. We start with the primary +instinct of self-preservation. This means, at first, that each +individual strives to preserve himself. But as time goes on +individuals discover that they can only preserve themselves by +associating with others, and that they must defend society if they +want to defend themselves. They thus form a habit of defending +society; and this habit becomes in time a second instinct, and an +instinct so strong that it even overrides the primary one from +which it was derived; till at last you get individuals sacrificing +in defence of the community those very lives which they originally +entered the community to preserve."</p> + +<p>"What a charming paradox!" cried Ellis. "And so it is really +true that every soldier who dies on the field of battle does so +only by virtue of a miscalculation? And if he could but pull +himself up and remember that, after all, the preservation of his +life was the only motive that induced him to endanger it, he would +run away like a sensible man, and try some other device to achieve +his end, the device of society having evidently broken down, so far +as he is concerned."</p> + +<p>"There you are again," said Parry, "with your crude rationalism! +The point is that the social habit has now become an instinct, and +has therefore, as I say, imperative authority! No operations of the +reason touch it in the least"</p> + +<p>"Well," rejoined Ellis, "I must say that it seems to me very +hard that a man can't rectify such an important error. The +imposition is simply monstrous! Here are a number of fellows shut +up in society on the distinct understanding, to begin with, that +society was to help them to preserve their lives; instead of which, +it starves them and hangs them and sends them to be shot in battle, +and they aren't allowed to raise a word of protest or even to +perceive what a fraud is being perpetrated upon them!"</p> + +<p>"I don't see that it's hard at all," replied Parry; "it seems to +me a beautiful device of nature to ensure the predominance of the +better instincts."</p> + +<p>"The better instincts!" I cried, "but there is the point! These +instincts of yours, it seems, conflict; in battle, for example, the +instinct to run away conflicts with the instinct to stay and +fight?"</p> + +<p>"No doubt," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"And sometimes one prevails and sometimes the other?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And in the one case we say that the man does right, when he +stays and fights; and in the other that he does wrong, when he runs +away?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, how does your theory of instincts help us to know +what is Good? For it seems that after all we have to choose between +instincts, to approve one and condemn another. And our problem +still remains, how can we do this? how can we get any certainty of +standard?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the faculty that judges is itself an instinct?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is," I replied, "I don't really know what an +instinct is. My quarrel is not with the word instinct, but with +what seemed to be your assumption that whatever it is in us that +judges about Good judges in a single, uniform, infallible way. +Whereas, in fact, as you had to admit, sometimes at the same moment +it pronounces judgments not only diverse but contradictory."</p> + +<p>"But," he replied, "those seem to me to be exceptional cases. As +a rule the difficulty doesn't occur. When it does, I admit that we +require a criterion. But I should expect to find it in science +rather than in philosophy."</p> + +<p>"In science!" exclaimed Leslie. "What has science to do with +it?"</p> + +<p>"What has <i>not</i> science to do with?" said a new voice from +behind. It was Wilson who, in his turn, had joined us from the +breakfast room (he always breakfasted late), and had overheard the +last remark. He was a lecturer in Biology at Cambridge, rather +distinguished in that field, and an enthusiastic believer in the +capacity of the scientific method to solve all problems.</p> + +<p>"I was saying," Leslie repeated in answer to his question, "that +science has nothing to do with the Good."</p> + +<p>"So much the worse for the Good," rejoined Wilson, "if indeed +that be true."</p> + +<p>"But you, I suppose, would never admit that it is," I +interposed. I was anxious to hear what he had to say, though at the +same time I was desirous to avoid a discussion between him and +Leslie, for their types of mind and habits of thought were so +radically opposed that it was as idle for them to engage in debate +as for two bishops of opposite colour to attempt to capture one +another upon a chessboard. He answered readily enough to my +challenge.</p> + +<p>"I think," he said, "that there is only one method of knowledge, +and that is the method we call scientific."</p> + +<p>"But do you think there is any knowledge of Good at all, even by +that method? or that there is nothing but erroneous opinions?"</p> + +<p>"I think," he replied, "that there is a possibility of +knowledge, but only if we abjure dialectics. Here, as everywhere, +the only safe guide is the actual concrete operation of +Nature."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?" asked Leslie, his voice vibrating with latent +hostility.</p> + +<p>"I mean that the real significance of what we call Good is only +to be ascertained by observing the course of Nature; Good being in +fact identical with the condition towards which she tends, and +morality the means to attaining it."</p> + +<p>"But——" Leslie was beginning, when Parry cut him +short.</p> + +<p>"Wait a moment!" he said. "Let Wilson have a fair hearing!"</p> + +<p>"This end and this means," continued Wilson, "we can only +ascertain by a study of the facts of animal and human evolution. +Biology and Sociology, throwing light back and forward upon one +another, are rapidly superseding the pseudo-science of Ethics."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!" cried Ellis, <i>sotto-voce</i>, "here comes the +social organism! I knew it would be upon us sooner or later."</p> + +<p>"And though at present, I admit," proceeded Wilson, not hearing, +or ignoring, this interruption, "we are hardly in a position to +draw any certain conclusions, yet to me, at least, it seems pretty +clear what kind of results we shall arrive at."</p> + +<p>"Yes!" cried Parry, eagerly, "and what are they?"</p> + +<p>"Well," replied Wilson, "I will indicate, if you like, the +position I am inclined to take up, though of course it must be +regarded as provisional."</p> + +<p>"Of course! Pray go on!"</p> + +<p>"Well," he proceeded, "biology, as you know, starts with the +single cell——"</p> + +<p>"How do you spell it?" said Ellis, with shameless frivolity, +"with a C or with an S?"</p> + +<p>"Of these cells," continued Wilson, imperturbably, "every animal +body is a compound or aggregation; the aggregation involving a +progressive modification in the structure of each cell, the +differentiation of groups of cells to perform special +functions,—digestive, respiratory, and the rest,—and +the subordination of each cell or group of cells to the whole. +Similarly, in sociology——"</p> + +<p>"Dear Wilson," cried Ellis, unable any longer to contain +himself, "mightn't we take all this for granted?"</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute," I said, "let him finish his analogy."</p> + +<p>"That's just it!" cried Leslie, "it's nothing but an analogy. +And I don't see how——"</p> + +<p>"Hush, hush!" said Parry. "Do let him speak!"</p> + +<p>"I was about to say," continued Wilson, "when I was interrupted, +that in the social organism——"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" interjected Ellis, "here it is!"</p> + +<p>"In the social organism, the individual corresponds to the cell, +the various trades and professions to the organs. Society has thus +its alimentary system, in the apparatus of production and exchange; +its circulatory system, in the network of communications; its +nervous system, in the government machinery; its——"</p> + +<p>"By the bye," interrupted Ellis, "could you tell me, for I never +could find it in Herbert Spencer, what exactly in society +corresponds to the spleen?"</p> + +<p>"Or the liver?" added Leslie.</p> + +<p>"Or the vermiform appendix?" Ellis pursued.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," said Wilson, a little huffed at last, "if you are +tired of being serious it's no use for me to continue."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Wilson!" said Ellis. "I won't do it again; but one +does get a little tired of the social organism."</p> + +<p>"More people talk about it," answered Wilson, "than really +understand it."</p> + +<p>"Very true," retorted Ellis, "especially among biologists."</p> + +<p>At this point I began to fear we should lose our subject in +polemics; so I ventured to recall Wilson to the real issue.</p> + +<p>"Supposing," I said, "that we grant the whole of your position, +how does it help us to judge what is good?"</p> + +<p>"Why," he said, "in this way. What we learn from biology is, +that it is the constant effort of nature to combine cells into +individuals and individuals into societies—the protozoon, in +other words, evolves into the animal, the animal into what some +have called the 'hyper-zoon,' or super-organism. Well, now, to this +physical evolution corresponds a psychical one. What kind of +consciousness an animal may have, we can indeed only conjecture; +and we cannot even go so far as conjecture in the case of the cell; +but we may reasonably assume that important psychical changes of +the original elements are accompaniments and conditions of their +aggregation into larger entities; and the morality (if you will +permit the word) of the cell that is incorporated in an animal body +will consist in adapting itself as perfectly as may be to the new +conditions, in subordinating its consciousness to that of the +Whole—briefly, in acquiring a social instead of an individual +self. And now, to follow the clue thus obtained into the higher +manifestations of life. As the cell is to the animal, so is the +individual to society, and that on the psychical as well as on the +physical side. Nature has perfected the animal; she is perfecting +society; that is the end and goal of all her striving. When, +therefore, you raise the question, what is Good, biology has this +simple answer to give you: Good is the perfect social soul in the +perfect social body."</p> + +<p>As he concluded, Ellis exclaimed softly,"'<i>Parturiunt +montes</i>,'" and Leslie took it up with: "And not even a +mouse!"</p> + +<p>"Whether it is a mouse or no," I said, "it would be hard to say, +until we had examined it more closely. At present it seems to me +more like a cloud, which may or may not conceal the goddess Truth. +But the question I really want to ask is, What particular advantage +Wilson gets from the biological method? For the conclusion itself, +I suppose, might have been reached, and commonly is, without any +recourse to the aid of natural science."</p> + +<p>"No doubt," he said, "but my contention is, that it is only by +the scientific method that you get proof. You, for example, may +assert that you believe the social virtues ought to prevail over +individual passions; but if your position were challenged, I don't +see how you would defend it. Whereas I can simply point to the +whole evolution of Nature as tending towards the Good I advocate; +and can say:—if you resist that tendency you are resisting +Nature herself!"</p> + +<p>"But isn't it rather odd," said Ellis, "that we should be able +to resist Nature?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all," he replied, "for our very resistance is part of +the plan; it's the lower stage persisting into the higher, but +destined sooner or later to be absorbed."</p> + +<p>"I see," I said, "and the keynote of your position is, as you +said at the beginning, that Good is simply what Nature wants. So +that, instead of looking within to find our criterion, we ought +really to look without, to discover, if we can, the tendency of +Nature and to acquiesce in that as the goal of our aspiration."</p> + +<p>"Precisely," he replied, "that is the position."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "it is plausible enough; but the plausibility, I +am inclined to think, comes from the fact that you have been able +to make out, more or less, that the tendency of Nature is in the +direction which, on the whole, we prefer."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "supposing your biological researches had led +you to just the opposite conclusion, that the tendency of Nature +was not from the cell to the animal, and from the individual to +society, but in precisely the reverse direction, so that the end of +all things was a resolution into the primitive elements—do +you think you would have been as ready to assert that it is the +goal of Nature that must determine our ideal of Good?"</p> + +<p>"But why consider such a hypothetical case?"</p> + +<p>"I am not so sure," I replied, "that it is more hypothetical +than the other. At any rate it is a hypothesis adopted by one of +your authorities. Mr. Herbert Spencer, you will remember, conceives +the process of Nature to be one, not, as you appear to think, of +continuous progress, but rather of a circular movement, from the +utmost simplicity to the utmost complexity of Being, and back again +to the original condition. What you were describing is the movement +which we call upward, and which we can readily enough believe to be +good, at any rate upon a superficial view of it. But now, suppose +us to have reached the point at which the opposite movement begins; +suppose what we had to look forward to and to describe as the +course of Nature were a process, not from simple to complex, from +homogeneous to heterogeneous, or whatever the formula may be, but +one in exactly the contrary direction, a dissolution of society +into its individuals, of animals into the cells of which they are +composed, of life into chemistry, of chemistry into mechanism, and +so on through the scale of Being, reversing the whole course of +evolution—should we, in such a case, still have to say that +the process of Nature was right, and that she is to give the law to +our judgment about Good?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "I think we should; and for this reason. Only +those who do on the whole approve the course of Nature have the +qualities enabling them to survive; the others will, in the long +run, be eliminated. There is thus a constant tendency to harmonize +opinions with the actual process of the world; and that, no doubt, +is why we approve what you call the upward movement, which is the +one in which Nature is at present engaged. But, for the same +reason, if, or when, a movement in the opposite direction should +set in, people holding opinions like ours will tend to be +eliminated, while those will tend to survive more and more who +approve the current of evolution then prevailing."</p> + +<p>"And in this way," said Ellis, "an exquisite unanimity will be +at last attained, by the simple process of eliminating the +dissentients!"</p> + +<p>"Precisely!"</p> + +<p>"Well," cried Leslie, "no doubt that will be very satisfactory +for the people who survive; but it does not help us much. What we +want to know is, what <i>we</i> are to judge to be Good, not what +somebody else will be made to judge, centuries hence."</p> + +<p>"And for my part," said Ellis, "I'm not much impressed by the +argument you attribute to Nature, that if we don't agree with her +we shall be knocked on the head. I, for instance, happen to object +strongly to her whole procedure: I don't much believe in the +harmony of the final consummation—even if it were to be +final, and not merely the turn of the tide; and I am sensibly aware +of the horrible discomfort of the intermediate stages, the pushing, +kicking, trampling of the host, and the wounded and dead left +behind on the march. Of all this I venture to disapprove; then +comes Nature and says, 'but you ought to approve!' I ask why, and +she says, 'Because the procedure is mine.' I still demur, and she +comes down on me with a threat—'Very good, approve or no, as +you like; but if you don't approve you will be eliminated!' 'By all +means,' I say, and cling to my old opinion with the more affection +that I feel myself invested with something of the glory of a +martyr. Nature, it seems, is waiting for me round the corner +because I venture to stick to my principles. 'Ruat caelum!' I cry; +and in my humble opinion it's Nature, not <i>I</i>, that cuts a +poor figure!"</p> + +<p>"My dear Ellis," protested Wilson, "what's the use of talking +like that? It's not really sublime, it's only ridiculous!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly!" retorted Ellis; "it's you who are sublime. I prefer +the ridiculous."</p> + +<p>"So," I said, "does Wilson, if one may judge by appearances. For +I cannot help thinking he is really laughing at us."</p> + +<p>"Not at all," he replied, "I am perfectly serious."</p> + +<p>"But surely," I said, "you must see that any discussion about +Good must turn somehow upon our perception of it? The course of +Nature may, as you say, be good; but Nature cannot be the measure +of Good; the measure can only be Good itself; and the most that the +study of Nature could do would be to illuminate our perception by +giving it new material for judgment. Judge we must, in the last +resort; and the judgment can never be a mere statement as to the +course which Nature is pursuing."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Wilson, "but you will admit at least the paramount +importance of the study of Nature, if we are ever to form a right +judgment?"</p> + +<p>"I feel much more strongly," I replied, "the importance of the +study of Man; however, we need not at present discuss that. All +that I wanted to insist upon was, that the contention which you +have been trying to sustain, that it is possible, somehow or other, +to get rid of the subjectivity of our judgments about Good by +substituting for them a statement about the tendencies of +Nature—that this contention cannot be upheld."</p> + +<p>"If that be so," he said, "I don't see how you are ever to get a +scientific basis for your judgment."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," I replied, "that we can. It depends upon what +you include under science."</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said, "by science I mean the resumption in brief +formulæ of the sequence of phenomena; or, more briefly, a +description of what happens."</p> + +<p>"If that be so," I replied, "the method of judging about Good +can certainly not be scientific; for judgments about Good are +judgments of what ought to be, not of what is."</p> + +<p>"But then," objected Wilson, "what method is left you? You have +nothing to fall back upon but a chaos of opinions."</p> + +<p>"But might there not be some way of judging between +opinions?"</p> + +<p>"How should there be, in the absence of any external objective +test?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p> + +<p>"Why," he replied, "the kind of test which you have in the case +of the sciences. They depend, in the last resort, not on ideas of +ours, but on the routine of common sense-perception; a routine +which is independent of our choice or will, but is forced upon us +from without with an absolute authority such as no imaginings of +our own can impugn. Thus we get a certainty upon which, by the +power of inference, whose mechanism we need not now discuss, we are +able to build up a knowledge of what is. But when, on the other +hand, we turn to such of our ideas as deal with the Good, the +Beautiful, and the like—here we have no test external to +ourselves, no authority superior and independent. Invite a group of +men to witness a scientific experiment, and none of them will be +able to deny either the sequence of the phenomena produced, or the +chain of reasoning (supposing it to be sound) which leads to the +conclusion based upon them. Invite the same men to judge of a +picture, or consult them on a question of moral casuistry, and they +will propound the most opposite opinions; nor will there be any +objective test by which you can affirm that one opinion is more +correct than another. The deliverances of the external sense are, +or at least can be made, by correction of the personal equation, +infallible and the same for all; those of the internal sense are +different not only in different persons, but in the same person at +different times."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Leslie, impatiently, "we have all admitted that! The +question is whether—"</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," Wilson interposed, "I haven't yet come to my main +point. I was going to say that not merely are there these +differences of opinion, but even if there were not, even if the +opinions were uniform, they would still, as opinions, be subjective +and devoid of scientific validity. It is the external reference +that gives its certainty to science; and such a reference is +impossible in the case of judgments about the Beautiful and the +Good. Such judgments are merely records of what we think or feel. +These ideas of ours may or may not happen to be consistent one with +another; but whether they are so or not, they are merely our ideas, +and have nothing to do with the essential nature of reality."</p> + +<p>"I am not sure," I replied, "that the distinction really holds +in the way in which you put it. Let us take for a moment the point +of view of God—only for the sake of argument," I added, +seeing him about to protest. "God, we will suppose, knows all Being +through and through as it really is; and along with this knowledge +of reality he has a conviction that reality is good. Now, with this +conviction of his none other, <i>ex hypothesi</i>, can compete; for +he being God, we must at any rate admit that if anybody can be +right, it must be he. No one then can dispute or shake his opinion; +and since he is eternal he will not change it of himself. Is there +then, under the circumstances, any distinction of validity between +his judgment that what is, is, and his judgment that what is, is +good?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see the use," he replied, "of considering such an +imaginary case. But if you press me I can only say that I still +adhere to my view that any judgment about Good, whether made by God +or anybody else, can be no more than a subjective expression of +opinion."</p> + +<p>"But," I rejoined, "in a sense, all certainty is subjective, in +so far as the certainty has to be perceived. It is impossible to +eliminate the Subject. In the case, for example, upon which you +dwelt, of the impressions of external sense, the certainty of the +impressions is your and my certainty that we have them; and so in +the case of a cogent argument; for any given person the test of the +cogency is his perception that the cogency is there. And it is the +same with the Beautiful and the Good; there is no conceivable test +except perception. Our difficulty here is simply that perceptions +conflict; not that we have no independent test. But if, as in the +case I imagined, the perception of Good was harmonious with itself, +then the certainty on that point would be as final and complete as +the certainty in the proof of a proposition of Euclid."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid," said Wilson, "I don't follow you. You're +beginning to talk metaphysics."</p> + +<p>"Call it what you will," I replied, "so long only as it is +sense."</p> + +<p>"No doubt," he said, "but I don't feel sure that it is."</p> + +<p>"In that case you can show me where I am wrong."</p> + +<p>"No," he replied, "for, as I said, I can't follow you."</p> + +<p>"He means he won't," said Ellis, breaking in with his usual air +of an unprejudiced outsider, "But after all, what does it really +matter? Whatever the reason may be for our uncertainty as to Good, +the fact remains that we are uncertain. There's my Good, thy Good, +his Good, our Good, your Good, their Good; and all these Goods in +process of flux, according to the time of day, the time of life, +and the state of the liver. That being so, what is the use of +discussing Good in itself? And why be so disturbed about it? +There's Leslie, for instance, looking as if the bottom were knocked +out of the universe because he can't discover his objective +standard! My dear boy, life goes on just the same, my life, his +life, your life, all the lives. Why not make an end of the worry at +once by admitting frankly that Good is a chimæra, and that we +get on very well without it?"</p> + +<p>"But I don't get on well without it!" Leslie protested.</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "and I hoped that by this time we were agreed that +none of us could. But Ellis is incorrigible."</p> + +<p>"You don't suppose," he replied, "that I am going to agree with +you merely because you override me in argument—even if you +did, which you don't."</p> + +<p>"But at least," cried Leslie, "you needn't tell us so often that +you disagree."</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said, "I am dumb." And for a moment there was +silence, till I began to fear that our argument would collapse; +when, to my relief, Parry returned to the charge.</p> + +<p>"You will think me," he began, "as obstinate as Ellis; but I +can't help coming back to my old point of view. Somehow or other, I +feel sure you are making a difficulty which the practical man does +not really feel. You object to my saying that he knows what is good +by instinct; but somehow or other I am sure that he does know it. +And what I suggest now is, that he finds it written in +experience."</p> + +<p>"In whose experience?" Leslie asked defiantly.</p> + +<p>"In that of the race, or, at least, in that of his own age and +country. Now, do be patient a moment, and let me explain! What I +want to suggest is, that every civilization worth the name +possesses, in its laws and institutions, in the customs it blindly +follows, the moral code it instinctively obeys, an actual objective +standard, worked out in minute detail, of what, in every department +of life, really is good. To this standard every plain man, without +reasoning, and even without reflexion, does in fact simply and +naturally conform; so do all of us who are discussing here, in all +the common affairs of our daily life. We know, if I may say so, +better than we know; and the difficulties into which we are driven, +in speculations such as that upon which we are engaged, arise, to +my mind, from a false and unnecessary abstraction—from +putting aside all the rich content of actual life, and calling into +the wilderness for the answer to a question which solves itself in +the street and the market-place."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "for my own part, I am a good deal in sympathy +with what you say. At the same time there is a difficulty."</p> + +<p>"A difficulty!" cried Leslie, "there are hundreds and +thousands!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," I replied, "but the particular one to which I was +referring is this. Every civilization, no doubt, has its own +standard of Good; but these standards are different and even +opposite; so that it would seem we require some criterion by which +to compare and judge them."</p> + +<p>"No," cried Parry, "that is just what I protest against. We are +not concerned with other ideals than our own. Every great +civilization believes in itself. Take, for instance, the ancient +Greeks, of whom you are so fond of talking. In my opinion they are +absurdly over-estimated; but they had at least that good +quality—they believed in themselves. To them the whole +non-Greek world was barbarian; the standard of Good was frankly +their own standard; and it was a standard knowable and known, +however wide might be the deviations from it in practice. We find +accordingly that for them the ideal was rooted in the real. Plato, +even, in constructing his imaginary republic, does not build in the +void, evoking from his own consciousness a Cloud-Cuckoo-city for +the Birds; on the contrary, he bases his structure upon the actual, +following the general plan of the institutions of Sparta and Crete; +and neither to him nor to Aristotle does it ever occur that there +is, or could be, any form of state worth considering, except the +city-state with which they were familiar. It is the same with their +treatment of ethics; their ideal is that of the Greeks, not of Man +in general, and stands in close relation to the facts of +contemporary life. So, too, with their art; it is not, like that of +our modern romanticists, an impotent yearning for vaguely-imagined +millenniums. On the contrary, it is an ideal interpretation of +their own activity, a mirror focussing into feature and form the +very same fact which they saw distorted and blurred in the troubled +stream of time. The Good, in the Greek world, was simply the +essence and soul of the Real; and the Socrates of Xenophon who +frankly identified justice with the laws, was only expressing, and +hardly with exaggeration, the current convictions of his +countrymen. That, to my mind, is the attitude of health; and it is +the one natural to the plain man in every well-organized society. +Good is best known when it is not investigated; and people like +ourselves would do no useful service if we were to induce in others +the habit of discussion which education has made a second nature to +ourselves."</p> + +<p>"My dear Parry!" cried Ellis, "you alarm me! Is it possible that +we are all anarchists in disguise?"</p> + +<p>"Parry," I observed, "seems to agree with the view attributed by +Browning to Paracelsus, that thought is disease, and natural health +is ignorance."</p> + +<p>"Well," rejoined Ellis, "there is a good deal to be said for +that."</p> + +<p>"There's a good deal to be said for everything," I rejoined. +"But if thought indeed be disease, we must recognise the fact that +we are suffering from it; and so, I fear, is the whole modern +world. It was easy for the Greeks to be 'healthy'; practically they +had no past. But for us the past overweights the present; we +cannot, if we would, get rid of the burden of it. All that was once +absolute has become relative, including our own conceptions and +ideals; and as we look back down the ages and see civilization +after civilization come into being, flourish and decay, it is +impossible for us to believe that the society in which we happen to +be born is more ultimate than any of these, or that its ideal, as +reflected in its institutions, has any more claim than theirs to be +regarded as a final and absolute expression of Good."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Parry, "let us admit, if you like, that ideals +evolve, but, in any case, the ideal of our own time has more +validity for us than any other. As to those of the past, they were, +no doubt, important in their day, but they have no importance for +the modern world. The very fact that they are past is proof that +they are also superseded."</p> + +<p>"What!" cried Leslie, indignantly, "do you mean to say that +everything that is later in time is also better? That we are better +artists than the Greeks? better citizens than the Romans? more +spiritual than the men of the Middle Ages? more vigorous than those +of the Renaissance?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," replied Parry, "that I am bound to maintain all +that. I only say that on the whole I believe that ideals progress; +and that therefore it is the ideals of our own time, and that +alone, which we ought practically to consider."</p> + +<p>"The ideal of our own time?" I said, "but which of them? there +are so many."</p> + +<p>"No, there is really only one, as I said before; the one that is +embodied in current laws and customs."</p> + +<p>"But these are always themselves in process of change."</p> + +<p>"Yes, gradual change."</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily gradual; and even if it were, still change. And +to sanction a change, however slight, may always mean, in the end, +the sanctioning of a whole revolution."</p> + +<p>"Besides," cried Leslie, "even if there were anything finally +established, what right have we to judge that the established is +the Good?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that we have any right; but I am sure it is what +we do."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps we do, many of us," I said, "but always, so far as we +reflect, with a lurking sense that we may be all wrong. Or how else +do you account for the curious, almost physical, sinking and +disquiet we are apt to experience in the presence of a bold +denier?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I do experience it."</p> + +<p>"Do you not? I do so often; and only yesterday I had a specially +vivid experience of the kind."</p> + +<p>"What was that?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I was reading Nietzsche."</p> + +<p>"Who is he?"</p> + +<p>"A German writer. It does not much matter, but I had him in my +mind when I was speaking."</p> + +<p>"Well, but what does he say?"</p> + +<p>"It's not so much what he says, as what he denies."</p> + +<p>"What does he deny, then?"</p> + +<p>"Everything that you, I suppose, would assert. I should +conjecture, at least, that you believe in progress, democracy, and +all the rest of it."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he repudiates all that. Everything that you would reckon +as progress, he reckons as decadence. Democracy he regards, with +all that it involves, as a revolt of the weak against the strong, +of the bad against the good, of the herd against the master. Every +great society, in his view, is aristocratic, and aristocratic in +the sense that the many are deliberately and consciously sacrificed +to the few; and that, not as a painful necessity, but with a good +conscience, in free obedience to the universal law of the world. +'Be strong, be hard' are his ultimate ethical principles. The +modern virtues, or what we affect to consider such, sympathy, pity, +justice, thrift, unselfishness and the like, are merely symptoms of +moral degeneration. The true and great and noble man is above all +things selfish; and the highest type of humanity is to be sought in +Napoleon or Cæsar Borgia."</p> + +<p>"But that's mere raving!"</p> + +<p>"So you are pleased to say; and so, indeed, it really may be. +But not simply because it contradicts those current notions which +we are embodying, as fast as we can, in our institutions. It is +precisely those notions that it challenges; and it is idle to meet +it with a bare denial."</p> + +<p>"I can conceive no better way of meeting it!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, for purposes of battle. Yet, even so, you would surely +be stronger if you had reason for your faith."</p> + +<p>"But I think my reason sufficient—those are not the ideas +of the age."</p> + +<p>"But for all you know they may be those of the next."</p> + +<p>"Well, that will be its concern."</p> + +<p>"But surely, on your own theory, it must also be yours; for you +said that the later was also the better. And the better, I suppose, +is what you want to attain."</p> + +<p>"Well!"</p> + +<p>"Well then, in supporting the ideas and institutions generally +current, you may be hindering instead of helping the realization of +the Good you want to achieve."</p> + +<p>"But I don't believe Nietzsche's ideas ever could represent the +Good!"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because I don't."</p> + +<p>"But, at any rate, do you abandon the position that we can take +the ideas of our time as a final criterion?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so—I don't know—I'm sure there's +something in it! Do you believe yourself that they have no import +for us?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say that; but I think we have to find what the import +is. We cannot substitute for our own judgment the mere fact of a +current convention, any more than we can substitute the mere fact +of the tendency of Nature. For, after all, it is the part of a +moral reformer to modify the convention. Or do you not think +so?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," he admitted, "it may be!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it may be!" cried Leslie, "but palpably it is! Is there +any institution or law or opinion you could name which is not open +to obvious criticism? Take what you will—parliamentary +government, the family, the law of real property—is there one +of them that could be adequately and successfully defended?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly!" began Parry, with some indignation. "The +family—"</p> + +<p>"Oh," I interrupted, "we are not yet in a position to discuss +that! But upon one thing we seem to be agreed—that whatever +may be the value of current standards of Good in assisting our +judgment, we cannot permit them simply to supersede it by an act of +authority. And so once more we are thrown back each upon his own +opinions."</p> + +<p>"To which, according to you," interposed Parry, "we are bound to +attach some validity."</p> + +<p>"And yet which we are aware," added Ellis, "cannot possibly have +any."</p> + +<p>I was about to protest against this remark when I saw, coming +round from the garden, Bartlett and Dennis, the two remaining +members of our party. They had just returned from a mountaineering +expedition; and now, having had their bath, had come out to join us +in our usual place of assembly. Bartlett had in his hand the +<i>Times</i> and the <i>Daily Chronicle</i>. He was a keen business +man, and a Radical politician of some note; and though not +naturally inclined to speculative thought, would sometimes take +part in our discussions if ever they seemed to touch on any +practical issue. On these occasions his remarks were often very +much to the point; but his manner being somewhat aggressive and +polemic, his interposition did not always tend to make smooth the +course of debate. It was therefore with mingled feelings of +satisfaction and anxiety that I greeted his return. After some talk +about their expedition, he turned to me and said, "We ought to +apologise, I suppose, for interrupting a discussion?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all!" I replied; "but, as you are here, perhaps you will +be willing to help us?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said, "I leave that to Dennis. This kind of thing isn't +much in my line."</p> + +<p>"What kind of thing?" Leslie interjected. "I don't believe you +even know what we're talking about!"</p> + +<p>"Talking about. Why, philosophy, of course! What else should it +be when you get together?"</p> + +<p>"This time," I said, "it's not exactly philosophy, but something +more like ethics."</p> + +<p>"What is the question?" asked Dennis.</p> + +<p>Dennis was always ready for a discussion, and the more abstract +the theme, the better he was pleased. He had been trained for the +profession of medicine, but coming into possession of a fortune, +had not found it necessary to practise, and had been devoting his +time for some years past to Art and Metaphysics. I always enjoyed +talking to him, though the position he had come to hold was one +which I found it very difficult to understand, and I am not sure +that I have been able to represent it fairly.</p> + +<p>"We have been discussing," I said, in answer to his question, +"our judgments about what is good, and trying without much success +to get over the difficulty, that whereas, on the one hand, we seem +to be practically obliged to trust these judgments, on the other we +find it hard to say which of them, if any, are true, and how far +and in what sense."</p> + +<p>"Oh," he replied, "then Bartlett ought really to be able to help +you. At any rate he's very positive himself about what's good and +what's bad. Curiously enough, he and I have been touching upon the +same point as you, and I find, among other things, that he is a +convinced Utilitarian."</p> + +<p>"I never said so," said Bartlett, "but I have no objection to +the word. It savours of healthy homes and pure beer!"</p> + +<p>"And is that your idea of Good?" asked Leslie, irritated, as I +could see, by this obtrusion of the concrete.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "why not? It's as good an idea as most."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," I said, "all of us here should agree that the +things you speak of are good. But somebody might very well deny +it."</p> + +<p>"Of course somebody can deny anything, if only for the sake of +argument."</p> + +<p>"You mean that no one could be serious in such a denial?"</p> + +<p>"I mean that everybody really knows perfectly well what is good +and what is bad; the difficulty is, not to know it, but to do +it!"</p> + +<p>"But surely you will admit that opinions do differ?"</p> + +<p>"They don't differ nearly so much as people pretend, on +important points; or, if they do, the difference is not about what +ought to be done, but about how to do it."</p> + +<p>"What ought to be done, then?" asked Leslie defiantly.</p> + +<p>"Well, for example we ought to make our cities decent and +healthy."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because we ought; or, if you like, because it will make people +happy."</p> + +<p>"But I don't like at all! I don't see that it's necessarily good +to make people happy."</p> + +<p>"Oh well, if you deny that—"</p> + +<p>"Well, if I deny that?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you to be serious, that's all. Good simply +means, what makes people happy; and you must know that as well as I +do."</p> + +<p>"You see!" interposed Dennis; "I told you he was a +Utilitarian."</p> + +<p>"I daresay I am; at any rate, that's what I think; and so, I +believe, does everybody else."</p> + +<p>"'The Universe,'" murmured Ellis, "'so far as sane conjecture +can go, is an immeasurable swine's trough, consisting of solid and +liquid, and of other contrasts and kinds; especially consisting of +attainable and unattainable, the latter in immensely greater +quantities for most pigs.'"</p> + +<p>"That's very unfair," Parry protested, "as an account of +Hedonism."</p> + +<p>"I don't see that it is at all," cried Leslie.</p> + +<p>"I think," I said, "that it represents Bentham's position well +enough, though probably not Bartlett's."</p> + +<p>"Oh well," said Parry, "Bentham was only an egoistic +Hedonist."</p> + +<p>"A what?" said Bartlett.</p> + +<p>"An egoistic Hedonist."</p> + +<p>"And what may that be?"</p> + +<p>"An egoistic Hedonist," Parry was beginning, but Ellis cut him +short. "It's best explained," he said, "by an example. Here, for +example, is Bentham's definition of the pleasures of friendship; +they are, he says, 'those which accompany the persuasion of +possessing the goodwill of such and such individuals, and the right +of expecting from them, in consequence, spontaneous and gratuitous +services.'"</p> + +<p>We all laughed, though Parry, who loved fair play, could not +help protesting. "You really can't judge," he said, "by a single +example."</p> + +<p>"Can't you?" cried Ellis; "well then, here's another. 'The +pleasures of piety' are 'those which accompany the persuasion of +acquiring or possessing the favour of God; and the power, in +consequence, of expecting particular favours from him, either in +this life or in another.'"</p> + +<p>We laughed again; and Parry said, "Well, I resign myself to your +levity. And after all, it doesn't much matter, for no one now is an +egoistic Hedonist."</p> + +<p>"What are we then," asked Bartlett, "you and I?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course, altruistic Hedonists," said Parry.</p> + +<p>"And what's the difference?"</p> + +<p>"The difference is," Parry began to explain, but Ellis +interrupted him again.</p> + +<p>"The difference is," he cried, "that one is a brute and the +other a prig."</p> + +<p>"Really, Ellis," Parry began in a tone of remonstrance.</p> + +<p>"But, Parry," I interposed, "are you a Utilitarian?"</p> + +<p>"Not precisely," he replied; "but my conclusions are much the +same as theirs. And of all the <i>à priori</i> systems I +prefer Utilitarianism, because it is at least clear, simple, and +precise."</p> + +<p>"That is what I can never see that it is."</p> + +<p>"Why, what is your difficulty?"</p> + +<p>"In the first place," I said, "the system appears to rest upon a +dogma."</p> + +<p>"True," he said, "but that particular dogma—the greatest +happiness of the greatest number—is one which commends itself +to everyone's consciousness."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it!" said Ellis. "Let us take an example. A +crossing-sweeper, we will suppose, is suffering from a certain +disease about which the doctors know nothing. Their only chance of +discovering how to cure it is to vivisect the patient; and it is +found, by the hedonistic calculus, that if they do so, a general +preponderance of pleasure over pain will result. Accordingly, they +go to the crossing-sweeper and say,'O crossing-sweeper! In the name +of the utilitarian philosophy we call upon you to submit to +vivisection. The tortures you will have to endure, it is true, will +be inconceivable: but think of the result! A general preponderance +in the community at large of pleasure over pain! For every atom of +pain inflicted on you, an atom of pleasure will accrue to somebody +else. Upon you, it is true, will fall the whole of the pain; +whereas the pleasure will be so minutely distributed among +innumerable individuals that the increment in each case will be +almost imperceptible. No matter, it will be there! and our +arithmetic assures us that the total gain in pleasure will exceed +the total loss in pain. It will also be distributed among a greater +number of individuals. Thus all the requirements of the hedonistic +calculus are satisfied! Your duty lies plain before you! Rise to +the height of your destiny, and follow us to the dissecting room! +What do you think the crossing-sweeper would say? I leave it to +Bartlett to express his sentiments!"</p> + +<p>"My dear Ellis," said Parry, "your example is absurd. The case, +to begin with, is one that could not possibly occur. And even if it +did, one could not expect the man who was actually to suffer, to +take an impartial view of the situation."</p> + +<p>"But," I said, "putting the sufferer out of the question, what +would really be the opinion of the people for whom he was to +suffer? Do you think they would believe they ought to accept the +sacrifice? Every man, I think, would repudiate it with horror for +himself; and what right has he to accept it for other people?"</p> + +<p>"On the utilitarian hypothesis," said Parry, "he certainly ought +to."</p> + +<p>"No doubt; but would he? Utilitarianism claims to rest upon +common sense, but, in the case adduced, I venture to think common +sense would repudiate it."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," he said, "but the example is misleading. It is a +case, as I said, that could not occur—a mere marginal +case."</p> + +<p>"Still," I said, "a marginal case may suggest a fundamental +fallacy. Anyhow, I cannot see myself that the judgment that the +greatest happiness of the greatest number is good has a more +obvious and indisputable validity than any other judgments of +worth. It seems to me to be just one judgment among others; and, +like the others, it may be true or false. However, I will not press +that point. But what I should like to insist upon is, that the +doctrine which Bartlett seemed to hold—"</p> + +<p>"I hold no doctrine," interrupted Bartlett; "I merely expressed +an opinion, which I am not likely to change for all the philosophy +in the world." And with that he opened the <i>Chronicle</i>, and +presently becoming absorbed, paid for some time no further +attention to the course of our debate.</p> + +<p>"Well," I continued, "the doctrine, whether Bartlett holds it or +no, that the ultimately good thing is the greatest happiness of the +greatest number, cannot be insisted upon as one which appeals at +once to everyone's consciousness as true, so that, in fact, since +its enunciation, the controversy about Good may be regarded as +closed. It will hardly be maintained, I imagine, even by Parry, +that the truth of the doctrine is a direct and simple intuition, so +that it has only to be stated to be accepted?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not," Parry replied, "the contention of the +Utilitarians is that everyone who has the capacity and will take +the trouble to reflect will, in fact, arrive at their +conclusions."</p> + +<p>"The conclusions being like other conclusions about what is +good, the result of a difficult process of analysis, in which there +are many possibilities of error, and no more self-evident and +simple than any other judgment of the kind?"</p> + +<p>He agreed.</p> + +<p>"And further, the general principle, tentative and uncertain as +it is, requiring itself to be perpetually interpreted anew for +every fresh case that turns up."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why," I said, "even if we grant that the end of action is the +greatest happiness of the greatest number, yet we have still to +discover wherein that happiness consists."</p> + +<p>"But," he said, "happiness we define quite simply as +pleasure."</p> + +<p>"Yes; but how do we define pleasure?"</p> + +<p>"We don't need to define it. Pleasure and pain are simply +sensations. If I cut my finger, I feel pain; if I drink when I am +thirsty, I feel pleasure. There can be no mistake about these +feelings; they are simple and radical."</p> + +<p>"Undoubtedly. But if you limit pleasure and pain to such simple +cases as these, you will never get out of them a system of Ethics. +And, on the other hand, if you extend the terms indefinitely, they +lose at once all their boasted precision, and become as difficult +to interpret as Good and Evil."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why," I said, "if all conduct turned on such simple choices as +that between thick soup and clear, then perhaps its rules might be +fairly summed up in the utilitarian formula. But in fact, as +everyone knows, the choices are far more difficult; they are +between, let us say, a bottle of port and a Beethoven symphony; +leisure and liberty now, or £1000 a-year twenty years hence; +art and fame at the cost of health, or sound nerves and obscurity; +and so on, and so on through all the possible cases, infinitely +more complex in reality than I could attempt to indicate here, all +of which, no doubt, could be brought under your formula, but none +of which the formula would help to solve."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Parry, "the hedonistic calculus is difficult +to apply. No one, that I know of, denies that."</p> + +<p>"No one could very well deny it," I replied. "But now, see what +follows. Granting, for the moment, for the sake of argument, that +in making these difficult choices we really do apply what you call +the hedonistic calculus—"</p> + +<p>"Which I, for my part, altogether deny!" cried Leslie.</p> + +<p>"Well," I resumed, "but granting it for the moment, yet the +important point is not the criterion, but the result. It is a small +thing to know in general terms (supposing even it were true that we +do know it) that what we ought to seek is a preponderance of +pleasure over pain; the whole problem is to discover, in +innumerable detailed cases, wherein precisely the preponderance +consists. But this can only be learnt, if at all, by long and +difficult, and, it may be, painful experience. We do not really +know, <i>à priori</i>, what things are pleasurable, in the +extended sense which we must give to the word if the doctrine is to +be at all plausible, any more definitely than we know what things +are good. And the Utilitarians by substituting the word Pleasure +for the word Good, even if the substitution were legitimate, have +not really done much to help us in our choice."</p> + +<p>"But," he objected, "we do at least know what Pleasure is, even +if we do not know what things are pleasurable."</p> + +<p>"And so I might say we do know what Good is, even if we do not +know what things are good."</p> + +<p>"But we know Pleasure by direct sensation."</p> + +<p>"And so I might say we know Good by direct perception."</p> + +<p>"But you cannot define Good."</p> + +<p>"Neither can you define Pleasure. Both must be recognised by +direct experience."</p> + +<p>"But, at any rate," he said, "there is this distinction, that in +the case of Pleasure everyone <i>does</i> recognise it when it +occurs; whereas there is no such general recognition of Good."</p> + +<p>"That," I admitted, "may, perhaps, be true; I am not sure."</p> + +<p>"But," broke in Leslie, "what does it matter whether it be true +or no? What has all this to do with the question? It's immaterial +whether Pleasure or Good is the more easily and generally +recognisable. The point is that they are radically different +things."</p> + +<p>"No," objected Parry, "<i>our</i> point is that they are the +same thing."</p> + +<p>"But I don't believe you really think so, or that anyone +can."</p> + +<p>"And <i>I</i> don't believe that anyone <i>cannot</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say that you really agree with Bentham that, +quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as +poetry?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; at least I agree with what he means, though the particular +example doesn't appeal to me, for I hardly know what either pushpin +or poetry is."</p> + +<p>"Well then, let us take Plato's example. Do you think that, +quantity of pleasure being equal, scratching oneself when one +itches is as good as, say, pursuing scientific research."</p> + +<p>"Yes. But of course the point is that quantity of pleasure is +not equal."</p> + +<p>"You mean," interposed Ellis, "that there is more pleasure in +scratching?"</p> + +<p>"No, of course not."</p> + +<p>"But at least you will admit that there is more pleasure in some +physical experiences? Plato, for example, takes the case of a +catamite."</p> + +<p>"I admit nothing of the kind. In the first place, these gross +physical pleasures do not last."</p> + +<p>"But suppose they did? Imagine an eternal, never-changing bliss +of scratching, or of—"</p> + +<p>"I don't see the use of discussing the matter in this kind of +way. It seems to me to deserve serious treatment"</p> + +<p>"But I am perfectly serious. I do genuinely believe that a +heaven of scratching, or at any rate of some analogous but intenser +experience, would involve an indefinitely greater sum of pleasure +than a heaven of scientific research."</p> + +<p>"Well, all I can say is, I don't agree with you."</p> + +<p>"But why not?" cried Leslie. "If you were candid I believe you +would. The fact is that you have predetermined that scientific +research is a better thing than such physical pleasure, and then +you bring out your calculation of pleasure so as to agree with that +foregone conclusion. And that is what the Utilitarians always do. +Being ordinary decent people they accept the same values as the +rest of the world, and on the same grounds as the rest of the +world. And then they pretend, and no doubt believe themselves, that +they have been led to their conclusions by the hedonistic calculus. +But really, if they made an impartial attempt to apply the calculus +fairly, they would arrive at quite different results, results which +would surprise and shock themselves, and destroy the whole +plausibility of their theory."</p> + +<p>"That is your view of the matter."</p> + +<p>"But isn't it yours?"</p> + +<p>"No, certainly not."</p> + +<p>"At any rate," I interposed, "it seems to be clear that this +utilitarian doctrine has nothing absolute or final or self-evident +about it. All we can say is that among the many opinions about what +things are good, there is also this opinion, very widely held, that +all pleasurable things are good, and that nothing is good that is +not pleasurable. But that, like any other opinion, can be and is +disputed. So that we return pretty much to the point we left, that +there are a number of conflicting opinions about what things are +good, that to these opinions some validity must be attached, but +that it is difficult to see how we are to reconcile them or to +choose between them. Only, somehow or other, as it seems to me, the +truth about Good must be adumbrated in these opinions, and by +interrogating the actual experience of men in their judgments about +good things, we may perhaps be able to get at least some, shadowy +notion of the object of our quest"</p> + +<p>"And so," said Ellis, getting up and stretching himself, "even +by your own confession we end where we began."</p> + +<p>"Not quite," I replied. "Besides, have we ended?"</p> + +<p>For some minutes it seemed as though we had. The mid-day heat +(it was now twelve o'clock) and the silence broken only by the +murmur of the fountain (for the mowers opposite had gone home to +their dinner) seemed to have induced a general disinclination to +the effort of speech or thought Even Dennis whom I had never known +to be tired in body or mind, and who was always debating +something—it seemed to matter very little what—even he, +I thought at first, was ready to let the discussion drop. But +presently it became clear that he was only revolving my last words +in his mind, for before long he turned to me and said:</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean by 'interrogating experience,' or +what results you hope to attain by that process." At this Leslie +pricked up his ears, and I saw that he at least was as eager as +ever to pursue the subject further.</p> + +<p>"Why," continued Dennis, "should there not be a method of +discovering Good independently of all experience?"</p> + +<p>The phrase immediately arrested Wilson's attention.</p> + +<p>"'A method independent of experience,'" he cried, "why, what +kind of a method would that be?"</p> + +<p>"It is not so easy to describe," replied Dennis. "But I was +thinking of the kind of method, for example, that is worked out by +Hegel in his <i>Logic</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I have never read Hegel," said Wilson. "So that doesn't convey +much to my mind."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Dennis, "I am afraid I can't summarize him!"</p> + +<p>"Can't you?" cried Ellis, "I can! Here he is in a nutshell! Take +any statement you like—for example, 'Nothing +exists!'—put it into the dialectical machine, turn the +handle, and hey presto! out comes the Absolute! The thing's +infallible; it does not matter what you put in; you always get out +the same identical sausage."</p> + +<p>Dennis laughed. "There, Wilson," he said, "I hope you understand +now!"</p> + +<p>"I can't say I do," replied Wilson, "but I daresay it doesn't +much matter."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, then," said Ellis, "you would prefer the Kantian +plan."</p> + +<p>"What is that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's much simpler than the other. You go into your room, +lock the door, and close the shutters, excluding all light Then you +proceed to invert the mind, so as to relieve it of all its +contents; look steadily into the empty vessel, as if it were a +well; and at the bottom you will find Truth in the form of a +categorical imperative. Or, if you don't like that, there's the +method of Fichte. You take an Ego, by preference yourself; convert +it into a proposition; negate it, affirm it, negate it again, and +so on <i>ad infinitum</i>, until you get out the whole Universe in +the likeness of yourself. But that's rather a difficult method; +probably you would prefer Spinoza's. You take—"</p> + +<p>"No!" cried Dennis, "there I protest! Spinoza is too venerable a +name."</p> + +<p>"So are they all, all venerable names," said Ellis. "But the +question is, to which of them do you swear allegiance? For they all +arrive at totally different results."</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I swear allegiance to any of them," he +replied. "I merely ventured to suggest that it is only by some such +method of pure reason that one can ever hope to discover Good."</p> + +<p>"You do not profess then," I said, "to have discovered any such +method yourself?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Nor do you feel sure that anyone else has?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You simply lie down and block the road?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "and you may walk over me if you can."</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "It will be simpler, I think, if possible, to walk +round you." For by this time an idea had occurred to me.</p> + +<p>"Do so," he said, "by all means, if you can."</p> + +<p>"Well" I began, "let us suppose for the sake of argument that +there really is some such method as you suggest of discovering +Good—a purely rational method, independent of all common +experience."</p> + +<p>"Let us suppose it," he said, "if you are willing."</p> + +<p>"Is it your idea then," I continued, "that this Good so +discovered, would be out of all relation to what we call goods? Or +would it be merely the total reality of which they are imperfect +and inadequate expressions?"</p> + +<p>"I do not see," he said, "why it should have any relationship to +them. All the things we call good may really be bad; or some good +and some bad in a quite chaotic fashion. There is no reason to +suppose that our ideas about Good have any validity unless it were +by an accidental coincidence."</p> + +<p>"And further," I said, "though we really do believe there is a +Good, and that there is a purely rational and <i>à +priori</i> method of discovering it, yet we do not profess to have +ascertained that method ourselves, nor do we feel sure that it has +been ascertained by anyone? In any case, we admit, I suppose, that +to the great mass of men, both of our own and all previous ages, +such a method has remained unknown and unsuspected?"</p> + +<p>He agreed.</p> + +<p>"But these men, nevertheless, have been pursuing Goods under the +impression that they were really good."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And in this pursuit they have been expending, great men and +small alike, or rather those whom we call great and small, all that +store of energy, of passion, and blood and tears which makes up the +drama of history?"</p> + +<p>"Undoubtedly!"</p> + +<p>"But that expenditure, as we now see, was futile and absurd. The +purposes to which it was directed were not really good, nor had +they any tendency to promote Good, unless it were in some +particular case by some fortunate chance. Whatever men have striven +to achieve, whether like Christ, to found a religion, or, like +Cæsar, to found a polity, whether their quest were virtue or +power or truth, or any other of the ends we are accustomed to value +and praise, or whether they sought the direct opposites of these, +or simply lived from hour to hour following without reflexion the +impulse of the moment, in any and every case all alike, great and +small, good and bad, leaders and followers, or however else we may +class them, were, in fact, equally insignificant and absurd, the +idle sport of illusions, one as empty and baseless as another. The +history of nations, the lives of individual men, are stripped, in +this view, of all interest and meaning; nowhere is there advance or +retrogression, nowhere better or worse, nowhere sense or +consistency at all. Systems, however imposing, structures, however +vast, fly into dust and powder at a touch. The stars fall from the +human firmament; the beacon-lights dance like will-o'-the-wisps; +the whole universe of history opens, cracks, and dissolves in +smoke; and we, from an ever-vanishing shore, gaze with impotent +eyes at the last gleam on the wings of the dove of Reason as it +dips for ever down to eternal night. Will not that be the only view +we can take of the course of human action if we hold that what we +believe to be goods have no relation to the true Good?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he admitted, "I suppose it will."</p> + +<p>"And if we turn," I continued, "from the past to the present and +the future, we find ourselves, I think, in even worse case. For we +shall all, those of us who may come to accept the hypothesis you +put forward, be deprived of the consolation even of imagining a +reason and purpose in our lives. The great men of the past, at any +rate, could and did believe that they were helping to realize great +Goods; but we, in so far as we are philosophers, shall have to +forego even that satisfaction. We shall believe, indeed, that Good +exists, and that there is a method of discovering it by pure +reason; but this method, we may safely assume, we shall not most of +us have ascertained. Or do you think we shall?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell," he said; "I do not profess to have ascertained +it myself."</p> + +<p>"And meantime," I said, "you have not even the right to assume +that it is a good thing to endeavour to ascertain it. For the +pursuit of Truth, it must be admitted, is one of the things which +we call good; and these, we agreed, have not any relation to the +true Good. Consider, then, the position of these unfortunate men +who have learnt indeed that there is a Good, but who know nothing +about it, except that it has nothing to do with what they call +good. What kind of life will they live? Whatever they may put their +hand to, they will at once be paralyzed by the thought that it +cannot possibly be worth pursuing. Politics, art, pleasure, +science—of these and all other ends they know but one thing, +that all is vanity. As by the touch of enchantment, their world is +turned to dust. Like Tantalus they stretch lips and hands towards a +water for ever vanishing, a fruit for ever withdrawn. At war with +empty phantoms, they 'strike with their spirit's knife,' as Shelley +has it, 'invulnerable nothings,' Dizzy and lost they move about in +worlds not only unrealized, but unrealizable, 'children crying in +the night, with no language but a cry,' and no father to cry to. +And in all this blind confusion the only comfort vouchsafed is that +somehow or other they may, they cannot tell how, discover a Good of +which the only thing they know is that it has no connection with +the Goods they have lost. Is not this a fair account of the +condition to which men would be reduced who really did accept and +believe your hypothesis?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "perhaps it is, but still I must protest against +this appeal to prejudice and passion. Supposing the truth really +were as I suggested, we should have to face it, whether or no it +seemed to ruin our own life."</p> + +<p>"Yes," I agreed, "supposing the truth were so. But, after all, +we have no sufficient theoretical reason for believing it to be so, +and every kind of practical reason against it. We cannot, it is +true, demonstrate—and that was admitted from the +first—that any of our judgments about what is good are true; +but there is no reason why we should not believe—and I should +say we must believe—that somehow or other they do at least +have truth in them."</p> + +<p>"Well, and if so?"</p> + +<p>"If so, we do not depend, as you said we do, or at least we do +not believe ourselves to depend, for our knowledge about Good, upon +some purely rational process not yet discovered; but those things +which we judge to be good really, we think, in some sense or so, +and by analyzing and classifying and comparing our experiences of +such things we may come to see more clearly what it is in them that +we judge to be good; and again by increasing experience we may come +to know more Good than we knew; and generally, if we once admit +that we have some light, we may hope, by degrees, to get more; and +that getting of more light will be the most important business, not +only of philosophy, but of life."</p> + +<p>"But if we can judge of Good at all, why do we not judge +rightly? If we really have a perception, how is it that it is +confused, not clear?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell how or why; but perhaps it is something of this +kind. Our experience, in the first place, is limited, and we cannot +know Good except in so far as we experience it—so, at least, +I think, though perhaps you may not agree. And if that be so, even +if our judgments about Good that we have experienced were clear, +our conclusions drawn from them would yet be very imperfect and +tentative, because there would be so much Good that we had not +experienced. But, in fact, as it seems, our judgments even about +what we do experience are confused, because every experience is +indefinitely complex, and contains, along with the Good, so much +that is indifferent or bad. And to analyze out precisely what it is +that we are judging to be good is often a difficult and laborious +task, though it is one that should be a main preoccupation with us +all."</p> + +<p>"You think, then, that there are two reasons for the obscurity +and confusion that prevail in our judgments about Good—one, +that our experience is limited, the other that it is complex?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; and our position in this respect, as it always seems to +me, is like that of people who are learning to see, or to develop +some other sense. Something they really do perceive, but they find +it hard to say what. Their knowledge of the object depends on the +state of the organ; and it is only by the progressive perfecting of +that, that they can settle their doubts and put an end to their +disputes, whether with themselves or with other people."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Well, if you will allow me to elaborate my metaphor, I conceive +that we have a kind of internal sense, like a rudimentary eye, +whose nature it is to be sensitive to Good, just as it is the +nature of the physical eye to be sensitive to light. But this eye +of the soul, being, as I said, rudimentary, does not as yet +perceive Good with any clearness or precision, but only in a faint +imperfect way, catching now one aspect of it, now another, but +never resting content in any of these, being driven on by the +impulse to realize itself to ever surer and finer discrimination, +with the sense that it is learning its own nature as it learns that +of its object, and that it will never be itself a true and perfect +organ until it is confronted with the true and perfect Good. And as +by the physical eye we learn by degrees to distinguish colours and +forms, to separate and combine them, and arrange them in definite +groups, and then, going further, after discerning in this way a +world of physical things, proceed to fashion for our delight a +world of art, in that finer experience becoming aware of our own +finer self; so, by this eye of hers, does the soul, by long and +tentative effort, learn to distinguish and appraise the Goods which +Nature presents to her; and then, still unsatisfied, proceed to +shape for herself a new world, as it were, of moral art, fashioning +the relations of man to Nature and to his fellow-man under the +stress of her need to realize herself, ever creating and ever +destroying only to create anew, learning in the process her own +nature, yet aware that she has never learnt it, but passing on +without rest to that unimagined consummation wherein the impulse +that urges her on will be satisfied at last, and she will rest in +the perfect enjoyment of that which she knows to be Good, because +in it she has found not only her object but herself. Is not this a +possible conception?"</p> + +<p>"I do not say," he replied, "that it is impossible; but I still +feel a difficulty."</p> + +<p>"What is it?" I said, "for I am anxious not to shirk +anything."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "you will remember when Parry suggested that +the perception of Good might perhaps be an instinct, you objected +that instincts conflict one with another, and that we therefore +require another faculty to choose between them. Now it seems to me +that your own argument is open to the same objection. You postulate +some faculty—which perhaps you might as well call an +instinct—and this faculty, as I understand you, in the effort +to realize itself, proceeds to discriminate various objects as +good. But, now, does this same faculty also know that the Goods are +good, and which is better than which, and generally in what +relations they stand to one another and to the absolutely Good? Or +do we not require here, too, another faculty to make these +judgments, and must not this faculty, as I said at first, have +previously achieved, by some method of its own, a knowledge of +Good, in order that it may judge between Goods?"</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "in that way you will get, as you hint, nothing +but an infinite regress. The perception of Good, whenever it comes, +must be, in the last analysis, something direct, immediate, and +self-evident; and so far I am in agreement with Parry. My only +quarrel with him was in regard to his assumption that the judgments +we make about Good are final and conclusive. The experiences we +recognize as good are always, it seems to me, also bad; because we +are never able to apprehend or experience what is absolutely Good. +Only, as I like to believe—you may say I have no grounds for +the belief—we are always progressing towards such a Good; and +the more of it we apprehend and experience, the more we are aware +of our own well-being; or perhaps I ought to say, of the well-being +of that part of us, whatever it may be—I call it the +soul—which pursues after Good. For her attitude, perhaps you +will agree, towards her object, is not simply one of perception, +but one of appetency and enjoyment. Her aim is not merely to know +Good, but to experience it; so that along with her apprehension of +Good goes her apprehension of her own well-being, dependent upon +and varying with her relation to that, her object. Thus she is +aware of a tension, as it were, when she cannot expand, of a +drooping and inanition when nutriment fails, of a rush of health +and vigour as she passes into a new and larger life, as she freely +unfolds this or that aspect of her complex being, triumphs at last +over an obstacle that has long hemmed and thwarted her course, and +rests for a moment in free and joyous consciousness of self, like a +stream newly escaped from a rocky gorge, to meander in the sun +through a green melodious valley. And this perception she has of +her own condition is like our perception of health and disease. We +know when we are well, not by any process of ratiocination, by +applying from without a standard of health deduced by pure thought, +but simply by direct sensation of well-being. So it is with this +soul of ours, which is conversant with Good. Her perception of Good +is but the other side of her perception of her own well-being, for +her well-being consists in her conformity to Good. Thus every phase +of her growth (in so far as she grows) is in one sense good, and in +another bad; good in so far as it is self-expression, bad in so far +as the expression is incomplete. From the limitations of her being +she flies, towards its expansion she struggles; and by her +perception that every Good she attains is also bad, she is driven +on in her quest of that ultimate Good which would be, if she could +reach it, at once the complete realization of herself, and her +complete conformity to Good."</p> + +<p>"But," he objected, "apart from other difficulties, in your +method of discovering the Good is there no place for Reason at +all?"</p> + +<p>"I would not say that," I replied, "though I am bound to confess +that I see no place for what you call pure Reason. It is the part +of Reason, on my hypothesis, to tabulate and compare results. She +does not determine directly what is good, but works, as in all the +sciences, upon given data, recording the determinations not (in +this case) of the outer but of the inner sense, noticing what kinds +of activity satisfy, and to what degree, the expanding nature of +this soul that seeks Good, and deducing therefrom, so far as may +be, temporary rules of conduct based upon that unique and central +experience which is the root and foundation of the whole. Temporary +rules, I say, because, by the nature of the case, they can have in +them nothing absolute and final, inasmuch as they are mere +deductions from a process which is always developing and +transforming itself. Systems of morals, maxims of conduct are so +many landmarks left to show the route by which the soul is +marching; casts, as it were, of her features at various stages of +her growth, but never the final record of her perfect countenance. +And that is why the current morality, the positive institutions and +laws, on which Parry insisted with so much force, both have and +have not the value he assigned to them. They are in truth +invaluable records of experience, and he is rash who attacks them +without understanding; and yet, in a sense, they are only to be +understood in order to be superseded, because the experience they +resume is not final, but partial and incomplete. Would you agree +with that, Parry, or no?"</p> + +<p>"I am not sure," he said. "It would be a dangerous doctrine to +put in practice."</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said, "but I fear that life itself is a dangerous +thing, and nothing we can do will make it safe. Our only hope is +courage and sanity."</p> + +<p>"But," said Dennis, "to return to the other point, on your view +is our knowledge of Good altogether subsequent to experience?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I replied, "our knowledge is, if you like; but it is a +knowledge of experience in Good. We first recognize Good by what I +call direct perception; then we analyze and define what we have +recognized; and the results of this process, I suppose, is what we +call knowledge, so far as it goes."</p> + +<p>"And there can be no knowledge of Good independent of +experience?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know; perhaps there might be; only I should like to +suggest that even if we could arrive at such a knowledge by pure +reason, we should have achieved only a definition of Good, not Good +itself; for Good, I suppose you will agree, must be a state of +experience, not a formula."</p> + +<p>"Even if it be so," he said, "it might still be possible to +arrive at its formula by pure reason."</p> + +<p>"It may be so," I replied, "only I console myself with the +thought, that if, as is the case with so many of us, we cannot see +our way to any such method, we are not left, on my hypothesis, +altogether forlorn. For though we cannot know Good, we can go on +realizing Goods, and so making progress towards the ultimate Good, +which is the goal not merely of knowledge but of action."</p> + +<p>"And how, may I ask," said Wilson, after a pause, "in your +conception, is Good related to Happiness?"</p> + +<p>"That," I replied, "is one of the points we have to ascertain by +experience. For I regard the statement that happiness is the end as +one of the numerous attempts which men have made to interpret the +deliverances of their internal sense. I do not imagine the +interpretation to be final and complete, and indeed it is too +abstract and general to have very much meaning. But some meaning, +no doubt, it has; and exactly what, may form the subject of much +interesting discussion in detail, which belongs, however, rather to +the question of the content of Good, than to that of the method of +discovering it."</p> + +<p>"The method!" replied Wilson, "but have you really indicated a +method at all?"</p> + +<p>"I have indicated," I replied "what I suppose to be the method +of all science, namely, the interpretation of experience."</p> + +<p>"But," he objected, "everything depends on the kind of +interpretation."</p> + +<p>"True," I admitted, "but long ago I did my best to prove that we +could not learn anything about Good by the scientific method as you +defined it. For that can tell us only about what is, not about what +ought to be. At the same time, the recording and comparing and +classifying of the deliverances of this internal sense, has a +certain analogy to the procedure of science. At any rate, it might, +I think, fairly be called a method, though a method difficult to +apply, and one, above all, which only he can apply who has within +himself the requisite experience. And in this respect the study of +the Good resembles the study of the Beautiful."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why," I said, "those who are conversant with the arts are well +aware that there is such a thing as a true canon, though they do +not profess to be in complete possession of it. They have a +perception of the Beautiful, not ready-made and final, but +tentative and in process of growth. This perception they cultivate +by constant observation of beautiful works, some more and some +less, according to their genius and opportunities; and thus they +are always coming to see, though they never see perfectly, just as +I said was the case in the matter of the Good."</p> + +<p>"But," objected Parry, "what proof is there that there is any +standard at all in such matters?"</p> + +<p>"There is no proof," I replied, "except the perception itself; +and that is sufficient proof to those who have it. And to some +slight extent, no doubt, all men have it; only many do not care to +develop it; and so, feeling in themselves that they have no +standard of judgment in art, they suppose that all others are like +themselves; and that there really is no standard and no knowledge +possible in such matters. And it is the same with Good; if a man +will not choose to cultivate his inner sense, and to train it to +clear and ever clearer perception, he will either never believe +that there is any knowledge of Good, or any meaning at all in the +word; or else, since all men feel the need of an end for action, he +will have recourse to a fixed dogma, taken up by accident and clung +to with obstinate desperation, without any root in his true inner +nature; and to him all discussion about Good will seem to be mere +folly, since he will believe either that he possesses it already or +that it cannot be possessed at all. Or If he ask after the method +of discovering it, he will be unable to understand it, because he +does not choose to develop the necessary experience; and so he will +go through life for ever unconvinced, arguing often and angrily, +but always with no result, while all the time the knowledge he +denies is lying hidden within him, if only he had the patience and +faith to seek it there. But without that, there is no possibility +of convincing him; and it will be wiser altogether to leave him +alone. This, whether you call it a method or no, is the only idea I +can form as to the possibility of discovering what is Beautiful and +Good."</p> + +<p>There was silence for a few moments, and then Wilson said:</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to imply, on your hypothesis, that we all are +always seeking Good?"</p> + +<p>"No," I said; "whatever I may think on that point, I have not +committed myself. It is enough for my purpose if we admit that we +have the faculty of seeking Good, supposing we choose to do +so."</p> + +<p>"And also the faculty of seeking Bad?"</p> + +<p>"Possibly; I do not pronounce upon that."</p> + +<p>"Well, anyhow, do you admit the existence of Bad?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," I cried, "as much as you like; for it is bad, to my +mind, that we should be in a difficult quest of Good, instead of in +secure possession of it. And about the nature of that quest I make +no facile assumption. I do not pretend that what I have called the +growth of the soul from within is a smooth and easy process, a +quiet unfolding of leafy green in a bright and windless air. If I +recognize the delight of expansion, I recognize also the pain of +repression—the thwarted desire, the unfulfilled hope, the +passion vain and abortive. I do not say even whether or no, in this +dim travail of the spirit, pleasure prevails over pain, evil over +good. The most I would claim is to have suggested a meaning for our +life in terms of Good; and my view, I half hoped, would have +appealed in particular to you, because what I have offered is not +an abstract formula, hard to interpret, hard to relate to the +actual facts of life, but an attempt to suggest the significance of +those facts themselves, to supply a key to the cryptogram we call +experience. And in proportion as we really believed this view to be +true, it would lead us not away from but into life, not shutting us +up, as has been too much the bent of philosophy, like the +homunculus of Goethe's 'Faust,' in the crystal phial of a set and +rigid system, to ring our little chiming bell and flash our tiny +light over the vast sea of experience, which all around us foams +and floods, myriad-streaming, immense, and clearly seen, yet never +felt, through that transparent barrier; but rather, like him when +he broke the glass, made free of the illimitable main, to follow +under the yellow moon the car of Galatea, her masque of nymphs and +tritons, her gliding pomp of cymbals and conchs, away through +tempest and calm, by night or day, companioned or alone, to the +haunts of the far Cabeiri, and the home where the Mothers +dwell."</p> + +<p>As I concluded, I looked across at Audubon, to see if I had made +any impression upon him. But he only smiled at me rather ironically +and said, "Is that meant, may I ask, for an account of everyday +experience?"</p> + +<p>"Rather," I replied, "for an interpretation of it."</p> + +<p>"It would need a great deal of interpretation," he said, "to +make anything of the kind out of mine."</p> + +<p>"No doubt," I said; "yet I am not without hope that the +interpretation may be true; and that some day you may recognize it +to be so yourself. Meantime, perhaps, I, who look on, see more of +the game than you who play it; and surely in moments of leisure +like this you will not refuse to listen to my poor attempt to read +the riddle of the sphinx."</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said, "I listen gladly enough, but as I would to a +poem."</p> + +<p>"And do you think," I replied, "that there is not more truth in +poetry than in philosophy or science?"</p> + +<p>But Wilson entered a vigorous protest, and for a time there was +a babel of argument and declamation, from which no clear line of +thought disengaged itself. Dennis, however, in his persistent way, +had been revolving in his mind what I had said, and at the first +opportunity he turned to me with the remark, "There's one point in +your position that I can't understand. Do you mean to say that it +is our seeking that determines the Good, or the Good that +determines our seeking."</p> + +<p>"Really," I said, "I don't know. I should say both are true. We, +in the process of our seeking, affirm what we find to be good, and +in that sense determine for ourselves what for us was previously +indeterminate; but, on the other hand, our determination is not +mere caprice; it is determination of Good, which we must therefore +suppose somehow or other to 'be' before we discern it."</p> + +<p>"But then, in what sense <i>is</i> it?"</p> + +<p>"That is what it is so hard to say. Perhaps it is the law of our +seeking, the creative and urging principle of the world, striving +through us to realize itself, and recognized by us in that effort +and strain."</p> + +<p>"Then your hypothesis is that Good has to be brought about, even +while you admit that in some sense it is?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it exists partially, and it ought to come to exist +completely."</p> + +<p>"Well now, that is exactly what seems to me absurd. If Good is +at all it is eternal and complete."</p> + +<p>"But then, I ask in my turn, in what sense <i>is</i> it?"</p> + +<p>"In the only sense that anything really is. The rest is nothing +but appearance."</p> + +<p>"What we call Evil, you mean, is nothing but appearance."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You think, in fact, with the poet, that 'all that is, is +good'?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "all that really is."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" I said, "but in that 'really' lies the crux of the matter. +Take, for instance, a simple fact of our own experience—pain. +Would you say, perhaps, that pain is good?"</p> + +<p>"No," he replied, "not as it appears to us; but as it really +is."</p> + +<p>"As it really is to whom, or in whom?"</p> + +<p>"To the Absolute, we will say; to God, if you like."</p> + +<p>"Well, but what is the relation of the pain as it is in God to +the pain that appears to us?"</p> + +<p>"I don't pretend to know," he said, "but that is hardly the +point. The point is, that it is only in connection with what is in +God that the word Good has any real meaning. Appearance is neither +good nor bad; it is simply not real."</p> + +<p>"But," cried Audubon, interrupting in a kind of passion, "It is +in appearance that we live and move and have our being. What is the +use of saying that appearance is neither good nor bad, when we are +feeling it as the one or the other every moment of our lives? And +as to the Good that is in God, who knows or cares about it? What +consolation is it to me when I am suffering from the toothache, to +be told that God is enjoying the pain that tortures me? It is +simply absurd to call God's Good good at all, unless it has some +kind of relation to our Good."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Dennis, "as to that, I can only say that, in my +opinion, it is nothing but our weakness that leads us to take such +a view. When I am really at my best, when my intellect and +imagination are working freely, and the humours and passions of the +flesh are laid to rest, I seem to see, with a kind of direct +intuition, that the world, just as it is, is good, and that it is +only the confusion and obscurity due to imperfect vision that makes +us call it defective and wish to alter it for the better. When I +perceive Truth at all, I perceive that it is also Good; and I +cannot then distinguish between what is, and what ought to be."</p> + +<p>"Really," cried Audubon, "really? Well, that I cannot +understand."</p> + +<p>"I hardly know how to make it clear," he replied, "unless it +were by a concrete example. I find that when I think out any +particular aspect of things, so far, that is to say, as I can think +it out at all, all the parts and details fall into such perfect +order and arrangement that it becomes impossible for me any longer +to desire that anything should be other than it is. And that, even +in the regions where at other times I am most prone to discover +error and defect. You know, for instance, that I am something of an +economist?"</p> + +<p>"What are you not?" I said. "If you sin, it is not from lack of +light!"</p> + +<p>"Well," he continued, "there is, I suppose, no department of +affairs which one is more inclined to criticise than this. And yet +the more one investigates the more one discovers, even here, the +harmony and necessity that pervade the whole universe. The ebb and +flow of business from this trade or country to that, the rise and +fall of wages, or of the rate of interest, the pouring of capital +into or out of one industry or another, the varying relations of +imports to exports, the periods of depression and recovery, and in +close connection with all this the ever-changing conditions of the +lives of countless workmen throughout the world, their well-being +or ill-being, it may be their very life and death, together with +the whole fate of future generations in health, capacity, +opportunity, and the like,—all this complexus of things, so +chaotic and unintelligible at the first view, so full, as we say, +of iniquity, injustice, and the like, falls, as we penetrate +further, into one vast and harmonious system, so inspiring to the +imagination, so inevitable to the understanding, that our +objections and cavillings, ethical, æsthetic, or what you +will, simply vanish away at the clearer vision, or, if they +persist, persist as mere irrelevant illusions; while we abandon +ourselves to the contemplation of the whole, as of some +world-symphony, whose dissonances, no less than its concords, are +taken up and resolved in the irresistible march and progress, the +ocean-flooding of the Whole. You will think," he continued, "that I +am absurdly rhapsodical over what, after all, is matter prosaic +enough; but what I wanted to suggest was that it is Reality so +conceived that appeals to me at once as Truth and as Good. This +partial vision of mine in the economic sphere is a kind of type of +the way in which I conceive the Absolute. I conceive Him to be a +Being necessary and therefore perfect; a Being in face of whom our +own incoherent and tentative criticisms, our complaints that this +or that should, if only it could, be otherwise, our regrets, +desires, aspirations, and the like, shew but as so many testimonies +to our own essential imperfection, weaknesses to be surmounted, +rather than signs of worth to stamp us, as we vainly boast, the +elect of creation."</p> + +<p>He finished; and I half expected that Leslie would intervene, +since I saw, as I thought, many weak points in the position. But he +kept silence, impressed, perhaps, by that idea of the Perfect and +Eternal which has a natural home in the minds of the generous and +the young. So I began myself rather tentatively:</p> + +<p>"I think," I said, "I understand the position you wish to +indicate; and so stated, in general terms, no doubt it is +attractive. It is when we endeavour to work it out in detail that +the difficulties appear. The position, as I understand it, is, +that, from the point of view of the Absolute, what we call Evil and +what we call Good simply have no existence. Good and Evil, in our +sense, are mere appearances; and Good, in the absolute sense, is +identical with the Absolute or with God?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "that is my notion."</p> + +<p>"And so, for example, to apply the idea in detail, in the region +which you yourself selected, all that we regret, or hate, or fear +in our social system—poverty, disease, starvation and the +rest—is not really evil at all, does not in fact exist, but +is merely what appears to us? There is, in fact, no social +evil?"</p> + +<p>"No," he replied, "in the sense I have explained there is +none."</p> + +<p>"Well then," I continued, "how is it with all our social and +other ideals? Our desire to make our own lives and other people's +lives happier? Our efforts to subdue nature, to conquer disease, to +introduce order and harmony where there appears to be discord and +confusion? How is it with those finer and less directly practical +impulses by which you yourself are mainly pre-occupied—the +quest of knowledge or of beauty for their own sake, the mere +putting of ourselves into right relations with the universe, apart +from any attempt to modify it? Are all these desires and activities +mere illusions of ours, or worse than illusions, errors and even +vices, impious misapprehensions of the absolutely Good, frivolous +attempts to adapt the Perfect to our own imperfections?"</p> + +<p>"No," he replied, "I would not put it so. Some meaning, I +apprehend, there must be in time and change, and some meaning also +in our efforts, though not, I believe, the meaning which we +imagine. The divine life, as I conceive it, is a process; only a +process that is somehow eternal, circular, so to speak, not +rectilinear, much as Milton appears to imagine it when he describes +the blessed spirits 'progressing the dateless and irrevoluble +circle of eternity'; and of this eternal process our activity, +which we suppose to be moving towards an end, is somehow or other +an essential element. So that, in this way, it is necessary and +right that we should strive after ideals; only, when we are +thinking philosophically, we ought to make clear to ourselves that +in truth the Ideal is eternally fulfilled, its fulfilment +consisting precisely In that process which we are apt to regard as +a mere means to its realization. This, as Hegel has it, is the +'cunning' of the Absolute Reason, which deludes us into the belief +that there is a purpose to be attained, and by the help of that +delusion preserves that energy of action which all the time is +really itself the End."</p> + +<p>I looked up at him as he finished, to see whether he was quite +serious; and as he appeared to be so, and as Leslie still kept +silence, I took up the argument as follows.</p> + +<p>"I understand," I said, "in a sort of way what you mean; but +still the same difficulty recurs which Audubon has already put +forward. On your hypothesis there seems to be an impassable gulf +between God's conception of Good and ours. To God, as it seems, the +world is eternally good; and in its goodness is included that +illusion by which it appears to us so bad, that we are continually +employed in trying to make it better. The maintenance of this +illusion is essential to the nature of the world; to us, evil +always must appear. But, as we know by experience, the evil that +<i>appears</i> is just as terrible and just as hateful as it would +be if it really <i>were</i>. A toothache, as Audubon put it, is no +less a pain to us because it is a pleasure to God. We cannot, if we +would, adopt His point of view; and clearly it would be impious to +try, since we should be endeavouring to defeat His ingenious plan +to keep the world going by hoodwinking us. We therefore are chained +and bound to the whirling wheel of appearance; to us what seems +good is good, and what seems bad, bad; and your contention that all +existence is somehow eternally good is for us simply irrelevant; it +belongs to the point of view of God to which we have no +access."</p> + +<p>"Yes," cried Audubon, "and what a God to call God at all! Why +not just as much the devil? What are we to think of the Being who +is responsible for a world of whose economy our evil is not merely +an accident, a mistake, but positively an essential, inseparable +condition!"</p> + +<p>"What, indeed!" exclaimed Leslie. "Call Him God, by all means, +if you like, but such a God as Zeus was to Prometheus, omnipotent, +indeed, and able to exact with infallible precision His daily and +hourly toll of blood and tears, but powerless at least to chain the +mind He has created free, or to exact allegiance and homage from +spirits greater, though weaker, than Himself."</p> + +<p>This was the sort of talk, I knew, that rather annoyed Dennis. I +did not therefore, for the moment, leave him time to reply, but +proceeded to a somewhat different point:</p> + +<p>"Even putting aside," I said, "the moral character of God, as it +appears in your scheme of the universe, must we not perhaps accuse +Him of a slight lapse of intelligence? For, as I understand the +matter, it was essential to the success of the Absolute's plan that +we should never discover the deception that is being played upon +us. But, it seems, we do discover it. Hegel, for example, by your +own confession, has not only detected but exposed it. Well then, +what is to be done? Do you suppose that we could, even if we would, +continue to lend ourselves to the imposition? Must not our aims and +purposes cease to have any interest for us, once we are clear that +they are not true ends? And that which, according to the +hypothesis, <i>is</i> the true end, the 'dateless and irrevoluble +circle' of activity, that, surely, we at least cannot sanction or +approve, seeing that it involves and perpetuates the very misery +and pain whose destruction was our only motive for acting at all. +For, whatever may be the case with God, we, you will surely admit, +are forbidden by all that in us is highest and best, to approve or +even to acquiesce in the deliberate perpetuation of a world of +whose existence all that we call evil is an essential and eternal +constituent So that, as I said at first, it looks as if the +Absolute Reason had not been, after all, quite as cunning as it +thought, since it has allowed us to discover and expose the very +imposition it had invented to cheat us into concurrence with its +plans."</p> + +<p>Dennis laughed a little at this; and then, "Well," he began, +"between you, with your genial irony, and Audubon and Leslie with +their heaven-defying rhetoric, I scarcely know whether I stand on +my head or my heels. But, the fact is, I think I made a slip in +stating my view; or perhaps there was really a latent contradiction +in my mind. At any rate, what I believe, whether or no I can +believe it consistently, is that it is possible for us, so to +speak, to take God's point of view; so that the evil against which +we rebel we may come at last to acquiesce in, as seen from the +higher point of view. And, seriously, don't you think it is +conceivable that that may be, after all, the true meaning of the +discipline of life?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell," I said, "perhaps it may. But, meantime, allow +me to press home the importance of your admission. For, as you say, +there is at least one of our aims which has a real significance, +namely, that of reaching the point of view of God. But this is +something that lies in the future, something to be brought about. +And so, on your own hypothesis, Good, after all, would not be that +which eternally exists, but something which has to be realized in +time—namely, a change of mind on the part of all rational +beings, whereby they view the world no longer in a partial +imperfect way, but, in Spinoza's phrase, '<i>sub specie +æternitatis</i>'"</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "I cannot admit that that is an end for the +Absolute, though I admit it is an end for us. The Absolute, somehow +or other, is eternally perfect and good; and this eternal +perfection and goodness are unaffected by any change that may take +place in our minds."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "I must leave it to the Absolute and yourself to +settle how that can possibly be. Meantime, I am content with your +admission that, for us, at least, there is an end and a Good lying +before us to be realized in the future. For that, as I understand, +you do admit. In your own life, for example, even if you aim at +nothing else, or at nothing else which you wholly approve, yet you +do aim, at least, with your whole nature at this—to attain a +view of the world as it may be conceived in its essence to be, not +merely as it appears to us."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I admit that is my aim."</p> + +<p>"That aim, then, is your Good?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so."</p> + +<p>"And it is something, as I said, that lies in the future? For +you do not, I suppose, count yourself to have attained, or at least +to have attained as perfectly as you hope to?"</p> + +<p>He agreed again.</p> + +<p>"Well then," I continued, "what may be the relation of this Good +of yours, awaiting realization in the future, to that eternal Good +of God in which you also believe, we will reserve, with your +permission, for some future inquiry. It is enough for our present +purpose that even you, who assert the eternal perfection of the +world, do nevertheless at the same time admit a future Good; and +much more do other men admit it, who have no idea that the world is +perfect at all. So that we may, I think, safely suppose it to be +generally agreed that the Good is something to be realized in the +future, so far, at any rate as it concerns us—and, for my +part, I have no desire to go farther than that."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I am content for the present to leave the +matter so. But I reserve the right to go back upon the +argument."</p> + +<p>"Of course!" I replied, "for it is not, I hope, an argument, but +a discussion; and a discussion not for victory but for truth. +Meantime, then, let us take as a hypothesis that Good is something +to be brought about; and let us consider next the other point that +Is included in your position. According to you, as I understand, +what requires to be brought about, if ever Good is to be realized, +is not any change in the actual stuff, so to speak, of the world, +in the structure, as it were, of our experience, but only a change +in our attitude towards all this—a change in the subject, as +they say, and not in the object. Our aim should be not to abolish +what we call evil, by successive modifications of physical and +social conditions, but rather, all these remaining essentially the +same, to come to see that what appears to be evil is not really +so."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "that is the view I would suggest."</p> + +<p>"So that, for example, though we might still experience a +toothache, we should no longer regard it as an evil; and so with +all the host of things we are in the habit of calling bad: they +would continue unchanged 'in themselves,' as you Hegelians say, +only to us they would appear no longer bad, but good?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; as I said at first, all reality is good, and all Evil, +so-called, is merely illusion."</p> + +<p>I was about to reply when I was forestalled by Bartlett. For +some time past the discussion had been left pretty much to Dennis +and myself, with an occasional incursion from Audubon and Leslie. +Ellis had gone indoors; Parry and Wilson were talking together +about something else; and Bartlett appeared to be still absorbed in +the <i>Chronicle</i>. I noticed, however, that for the last few +moments he had been getting restless, and I suspected that he was +listening, behind his newspaper, to what we were saying. I was not +therefore altogether surprised when, upon Dennis' last remark, he +suddenly broke into our debate with the exclamation;</p> + +<p>"Would it be' in order' to introduce a concrete example? There +is a curiously apt one here in the <i>Chronicle</i>."</p> + +<p>And upon our assenting, he read us a long extract about +phosphorus-poisoning, the details of which I now forget, but at any +rate it brought before us, very vividly, a tale of cruel suffering +and oppression.</p> + +<p>"Now," he said, as he finished, "is that, may I ask, the kind of +thing that it amuses you to call mere illusion?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Dennis stoutly, "that will do very well for an +example."</p> + +<p>"Well," he rejoined, "I do not propose to dispute about words; +but for my own part I should have thought that, if anything is +real, that is; and so, I think, you would find it, if you yourself +were the sufferer."</p> + +<p>"But," objected Dennis, "do you think that it is in the moment +of suffering that one is most competent to judge about the reality +of pain?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, for it is only in the moment of suffering that one +really knows what it is that one is judging about."</p> + +<p>"I am not sure about that. I doubt whether it is true that +experience involves knowledge and <i>vice versa</i>. It is, indeed, +to my mind, part of the irony of life, that we know so much which +we can never experience, and experience so much which we can never +know."</p> + +<p>"I don't follow that," said Bartlett, "but of one thing I am +sure, that you will never get rid of evil by calling it +illusion."</p> + +<p>"No," Dennis conceded, "you will never of course get rid of it, +in the sense you mean, by that, or indeed, in my opinion, by any +other means. But we were discussing not what we are to do with +evil, but how we are to conceive it."</p> + +<p>"But," he objected, "if you begin by conceiving it as illusion, +you will never do anything with it at all."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not, but I am not sure that that is my business."</p> + +<p>"At any rate, Dennis," I interposed, "you will, I expect, admit, +that for us, while we live in the region of what you call +'Appearance,' Evil is at least as pressing and as obvious as +Good."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I am ready to admit that."</p> + +<p>"And," I continued, "for my part I agree with Bartlett and with +Leslie, that it is Appearance with which we are concerned. What I +have been contending for throughout, is that in the world in which +we live (whether we are to call it Reality or Appearance), Evil and +Good are the really dominating facts; and that we cannot dismiss +them from our consideration either on the ground that we know +nothing of them (as Ellis was inclined to maintain) or on the +ground that we know all about them (as Parry and Wilson seemed to +think). On the contrary, it is, I believe, our main business to +find out about them; and that we can find out about them is with me +an article of faith, and so, I believe, it is with most people, +whether or no they are aware of it or are ready to admit it."</p> + +<p>Dennis was preparing to reply, when Ellis reappeared to summon +us to lunch. We followed him in gladly enough, for it was past our +usual hour and we were hungry; and the conversation naturally +taking a lighter turn, I have nothing further to record until we +reassembled in the afternoon.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<a name="BOOK_II"></a> +<h2><i>BOOK II</i>.</h2> + +<br> + + +<p>When we reassembled for coffee on the loggia after lunch, I did +not suppose we should continue the morning's discussion. The +conversation had been turning mostly on climbing, and other such +topics, and finally had died away into a long silence, which, for +my own part, I felt no particular inclination to break. We had let +down an awning to shelter us from the sun, where it began to shine +in upon us, so that it was still cool and pleasant where we sat; +and so delightful did I feel the situation to be, that I was almost +vexed to be challenged to renew our interrupted debate. The +challenge, rather to my surprise, came from Audubon, who suddenly +said to me, <i>à propos</i> of nothing, in a tone at once +ironic and genial:</p> + +<p>"Well, I thought you talked very well this morning."</p> + +<p>"Really!" I rejoined, "I imagined you were thinking it all great +nonsense."</p> + +<p>"So no doubt it was," he replied; "still, it amused me to hear +you."</p> + +<p>"I am glad of that, at any rate; I was afraid perhaps you were +bored."</p> + +<p>"Not at all. Of course, I couldn't fail to see that you weren't +arriving anywhere. But that I never expected. In fact, what amuses +me most about you is, the way in which you continue to hope that +you're going to get at some result."</p> + +<p>"But didn't we?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see that you did. You showed, or tried to show, that we +must believe in Good; but you made no attempt to discover what Good +is."</p> + +<p>"No," I admitted; "that, of course, is much more difficult."</p> + +<p>"Exactly; but it is the only point of importance."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "perhaps if we were to try, we should find that +we can come to some agreement even about that."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it."</p> + +<p>"But why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because people are so radically different, that there is no +common ground to build upon."</p> + +<p>"But is the difference really so radical as all that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I think so. At any rate, the proof of the +pudding is in the eating, and I make you an offer. Here are eight +of us, all Englishmen, all contemporaries, all brought up more or +less in the same way. And I venture to say that, if you will raise +the question, you won't find, even among ourselves, with all the +chances in your favour, any substantial agreement about what we +think good."</p> + +<p>This direct challenge was rather alarming. I didn't feel that I +could refuse to take it up, but I was anxious to guard myself +against the consequences of failure. So I began, with some +hesitation, "You must remember that I have never maintained that at +any given moment any given set of people will be found to be in +agreement on all points. All I ventured to suggest was, that +instead of our all being made, as you contend, radically different, +we have, underneath our differences, a common nature, capable of +judging, and judging truly, about Good, though only on the basis of +actual experience of Good. And on this view I shall, of course, +expect to find differences of opinion, corresponding to differences +of experience, even among people as much alike as ourselves; only I +shall not expect the differences to be finally irreconcilable, but +that we shall be able to supplement and elucidate one another's +conclusions by bringing to bear each his own experience upon that +of the rest."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "we shall see. I have invited you to make the +experiment."</p> + +<p>"I am willing," I replied, "if it is agreeable to the others. +Only I must ask you to understand from the beginning precisely what +it is I am trying to do. I shall be merely describing to you what I +have been able to perceive, with such experience as I have had, in +this difficult matter; and you will judge, all of you, whether or +no, and to what extent, your perceptions coincide with mine, the +object being simply to clear up these perceptions of ours, if we +can; to define somehow, as it were, what we have seen, in the hope +of coming to see something more."</p> + +<p>They agreed to take me on my own terms, and I was about to +begin, when, happening to catch Dennis' eye, I suddenly felt +discouraged. "After all," I said, "I doubt whether it's much use my +making the attempt."</p> + +<p>"Why, what's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," I said. "At least—well, I may as well confess +it, though it seems like giving away my whole case. The fact is, +that there are certain quite fundamental points in this connection +on which Dennis and I have never been able to agree; and although I +believe we should in time come to understand one another, I doubt +whether we can do so here and now. At any rate, he doesn't look at +all as if he meant to make it easy for me; and if I cannot carry +him along with me, I suppose I may as well give up at once."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Audubon, "if that is all, I will make a concession. +We will leave Dennis out of the reckoning. It shall be enough if +you can persuade the rest of us."</p> + +<p>"But," I urged, "I doubt, even so, whether Dennis will ever +allow me to get to the end. You see, he never lets things pass if +he doesn't happen to agree."</p> + +<p>"Oh," cried Ellis, "it's all right. We will keep him in +order."</p> + +<p>Dennis laughed. "You're disposing of me," he said, "in a very +easy manner. But perhaps I had better go away altogether; for, if I +stay, I certainly cannot pledge myself not to interrupt."</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "that seems hardly fair. What I propose is, that +we should both try to be as conciliatory as we can. And then, by +the process of 'give and take,' I shall perhaps slip past you +without any really scandalous concession on either side."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "you can try."</p> + +<p>So, after casting about in my mind, I began, with some +hesitation, as follows:</p> + +<p>"The first thing, then, that I want to say is this: Good, as it +seems to me, necessarily involves some form of conscious +activity."</p> + +<p>As I had expected, Dennis interrupted me at once.</p> + +<p>"I don't see that at all," he said. "Consciousness may have +nothing to do with it."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, indeed, it may not," I replied, with all the suavity I +could command. "I should rather have said that I, as a matter of +fact, can form no idea of Good except in connection with +consciousness."</p> + +<p>"Can you not?" he exclaimed, "but I can! If a thing is good it's +good, so it appears to me, whether or no there is any consciousness +of it."</p> + +<p>"But," I said, "I, you see, myself, have no experience of +anything existing apart from consciousness, so it is difficult for +me to know whether such a thing would be good or no. But you, +perhaps, are differently constituted."</p> + +<p>"Not in that point," he replied. "I admit, of course, that there +is no experience without consciousness. But we can surely conceive +that of which we have no experience? And I should have thought it +was clear that Good, like Truth, <i>is</i>, whether or no anyone is +aware of it. Or would you say that 2 + 2 = 4 is only true when +someone is thinking of it?"</p> + +<p>"As to that," I replied, "I would rather not say anything about +it just now. On the logical point you may be right; but that, I +think, need not at present detain us, because what I am trying to +get at, for the moment, is something rather different. I will put +it like this: Good, if it is to be conceived as an object of human +action, must be conceived, must it not, as an object of +consciousness? For otherwise do you think we should trouble to +pursue it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said, "whether we should; but perhaps we +ought to."</p> + +<p>"But," I urged, "do you really think we ought? Do you think, to +take an example, that it could be a possible or a right aim for an +artist, say, to be perpetually producing, in a state of complete +unconsciousness, works which on completion should be immediately +hermetically sealed and buried for all eternity at the bottom of +the sea? Do you think that he could or ought to consider such +production as a Good? And so with all the works of man. Do we, and +really ought we to, do anything except with some reference to +consciousness?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether we do," he replied, "but I think it quite +possible that we ought."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "we shall not, I suppose, just now, come to a +closer agreement But is there anyone else who shares your view? +for, if not, I will, with your permission, go on to the next +point"</p> + +<p>None spoke, and Dennis made no further opposition. So, after a +pause, I proceeded as follows: "I shall assume, then, that Good, in +the sense in which I am conceiving it, as an end of human action, +involves some kind of conscious activity. And the next question +would seem to be, activity of whom?"</p> + +<p>"That, at any rate," said Leslie, "appears to be simple enough. +It must be an activity of some person or persons."</p> + +<p>"Once more," murmured Dennis, "I protest."</p> + +<p>But this time I ventured to ignore him, and merely said, in +answer to Leslie, "The question, then, will be, what persons?"</p> + +<p>"Why," he replied, "ourselves, I suppose!"</p> + +<p>"What do you say, Parry?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't quite understand," he replied, "the kind of way you put +your questions. But my own idea has always been, what I suppose is +most people's now, that the Good we are working for is that of some +future generation."</p> + +<p>At this Leslie made some inarticulate interjection, which I +thought it better to ignore. And, answering Parry, I said, +"Suppose, then, we were to make a beginning by examining your +hypothesis."</p> + +<p>"By all means," he said, "though I should have thought we should +all have accepted it—unless, perhaps, it were Dennis."</p> + +<p>"I most certainly don't!" cried Leslie.</p> + +<p>"Nor I," added Audubon.</p> + +<p>"Oh you!" cried Parry, "you accept nothing!"</p> + +<p>"True"; he replied, "my motto is 'j'attends.'"</p> + +<p>"Well," I resumed, "let us follow the argument and see where it +leads us. The hypothesis is, that Good involves some state of +activity of some generation indefinitely remote. Is not that so, +Parry?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "and one can more or less define what the state +of activity, as you call it, will be."</p> + +<p>"Of course," interposed Ellis, "it will be one of heterogeneous, +co-ordinate, coherent——"</p> + +<p>"That," I interrupted, "is not at present the question. The +question is merely as to the location of Good. According to Parry, +it is located in this particular remote generation, and, I suppose, +in those that follow it. But now, what about all the other +generations, from the beginning of the world onward? Good, it would +seem, can have no meaning for them, since it is the special +privilege of those who come after them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, it has!" he replied, "for it is their business to +bring it about, not indeed for themselves, but for their +successors."</p> + +<p>"But," cried Leslie, "what an absurd idea! Countless myriads of +men and women are born upon the earth, live through their complex +lives of action and suffering, pleasure and pain, hopes, fears, +satisfactions, aspirations, and the like, pursuing what they call +Good, and avoiding what they call Bad, under the naïf +impression that there is Good and Bad for them—and yet the +significance of all this is not really for themselves at all, but +for some quite other people who will have the luck to be born in +the remote future, and for whose sake alone their fellow-creatures, +from the very beginning of time, have been brought into being like +so many lifeless tools, to be used up and laid aside, when done +with, on the black infinite ash-heap of the dead."</p> + +<p>"Oh, come!" said Parry, "you exaggerate! These tools, as you +call them, have a good enough time. It does not follow, because the +final Good lies in the future, that the present has no Good at all. +It has just as much Good as people can get out of it."</p> + +<p>"But then," said Leslie, "in that case it is this Good of their +own with which each generation is really concerned. So far as they +do get Good at all they get it as an activity in themselves."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," said Ellis; "and for my own part, I am sick of that +cant of living for future generations. Let us, at least, live for +ourselves, whether we live well or badly."</p> + +<p>"Well," replied Parry, rather stiffly, "of course every one has +his own ideas. But I confess that, for my own part, the men I +admire are those who have sacrificed themselves for the +future."</p> + +<p>"But, Parry," I interposed, "let us get clear about this; and +with a view to clearness let us take our own case. We, as I +understand you, have to keep in view a double Good: first, a Good +for ourselves, which is not indeed the perfect Good (for that is +reserved for a future generation), but still is something Good as +far as it goes—whether it be a certain degree of happiness, +or however else we may have to define it; and as to this Good, +there appears to be no difficulty, for we who pursue it are also +the people who get it That is so, is it not?"</p> + +<p>He agreed.</p> + +<p>"But now," I continued, "we come to the point of dispute. For +besides this Good of our own, we have also, according to the +theory, to consider a Good in which we have no share, that of those +who are to be born in some indefinite future. And to this remote +and alien Good we have even, on occasion, to sacrifice our +own."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," he said, "all good citizens will think so."</p> + +<p>"I believe," I admitted, "that they will. And yet, how strange +it seems! For consider it in this way. Imagine that the successive +generations can somehow be viewed as contemporaneous—being +projected, as it were, from the plane of time into that of +space."</p> + +<p>"It's rather hard," he said, "to imagine that."</p> + +<p>"Well, but try, for the sake of argument; and consider what we +shall have. We shall have a society divided into two classes, +composed, the one of all the generations who, if they followed one +another in time, would precede the first millenarian one; the other +of all the millenarian-generations themselves. And of these two +classes the first would be perpetually engaged in working for the +second, sacrificing to it, if need be, on occasion, all its own +Good, but without any hope or prospect of ever entering itself into +that other Good which is the monopoly of the other class, but to +the production of which its own efforts are directed. What should +we say of such a society? Should we not say that it was founded on +injustice and inequality, and all those other phrases with which we +are wont to denounce a system of serfdom or slavery?"</p> + +<p>"But," he objected, "your projection of time into space has +falsified the whole situation. For in fact the millenarian +generation would not come into being until the others had ceased to +be; and therefore the latter would not be being sacrificed to +it."</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "but they would have been sacrificed; and surely +it comes to the same thing?"</p> + +<p>"I am not sure," he replied, "and anyhow, I don't think +sacrifice is the right word. In a society every man's interest is +in the Whole; and when he works for the Whole he is also working +for himself."</p> + +<p>"No doubt that is true," I replied, "in a society properly +constituted, but I question whether it would be true in such a +society as I have described. And then there is a further +difficulty—and here, I confess, my projection of time into +space really does falsify the issue; for in the succession of +generations in time, where <i>is</i> the Whole? Each generation +comes into being, passes, and disappears; but how, or in what, are +they summed up?"</p> + +<p>"Why," he said, "in a sense they are all summed up in the last +generation."</p> + +<p>"But in what sense? Do you mean that their consciousness somehow +persists into it, so that they actually enjoy its Good?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not," he said, "but I mean that it was conditioned by +them, and is the result of their labour and activities."</p> + +<p>"In that sense," I replied, "you might say that the oysters I +eat are summed up in me. But it would be a poor consolation to the +oysters!"</p> + +<p>"Well," he rejoined, "whatever you may say, I still think it +right that each generation should sacrifice itself (as you call it) +for the next. And so, I believe, would you, when it came to the +point. At any rate, I have often heard you inveigh against the +shortsightedness of modern politicians, and their unwillingness to +run great risks and undertake great labours for the future."</p> + +<p>"Quite true," I said, "that is the view I take. But I was trying +to see how the view could be justified. For it seems to me, I +confess, that we can only be expected to labour for what is, in +some sense or other, our own Good; and I do not see how the Good of +future generations, in your way of putting it, is also ours."</p> + +<p>"But," he said, "we have an instinct that it is."</p> + +<p>"I believe we have," I replied, "but the question would be, what +that instinct really means. Somehow or other, I think it must mean, +as you yourself suggested, that our Good is the Good of the Whole. +Only the difficulty is to see how there is a Whole at all."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "perhaps there is no Whole. What then?"</p> + +<p>"Why, then," I replied, "how can we justify an instinct which +bids us labour and sacrifice ourselves for a Good, which, on this +hypothesis, has no significance for us, but only for other +people."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," he said, "we cannot justify it, but I am sure we +ought to obey it; and, indeed, I believe we cannot do otherwise. +Even taking the view that the order of the world is altogether +unjust, as I admit it would be on the view we are considering, yet, +since we cannot remedy the injustice, we are bound at least to make +the best of it; and the best we can do is to prepare the Good for +those who come after us, even though we can never enter into it +ourselves."</p> + +<p>"I am not so sure about that," Ellis interrupted, "I think the +best we can do is to try and realize Good for ourselves—as +much as we can get, even if we admit that this is but little. For +we do at least know, or may hope to discover, what Good for +ourselves is; whereas Good for other people is far more +hypothetical."</p> + +<p>"But, surely," he objected, "that would lead to action we cannot +approve—to a sacrifice of all larger Goods to our own +pleasure of the moment. We should breed, for example, without any +regard to the future efficacy of the race——"</p> + +<p>"That," interrupted Ellis, "we do as it is."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but we don't justify it—those of us, at least, who +think. And, again, we should squander on immediate gratifications +wealth which ought to be stored up against the future. And so on, +and so on; it is not necessary to multiply examples."</p> + +<p>"But," I objected, "we should only do these things if we thought +that kind of short-sighted activity to be good; but, as a matter of +fact, we do not, we who object to it. And that is because, as I +hinted before, our idea of even our own Good is that of an activity +in and for the Whole, and not merely in and for ourselves. And, +whether it is reasonable or no, we cannot help extending the idea +of the Whole, so as to include future generations. But, as it seems +to me, the real meaning and justification of our action is not +merely that we are seeking the Good of future generations but that +we are endeavouring to realize our own Good, which consists in some +such form of activity. So that really, as was suggested at the +beginning, Good will be a kind of activity in ourselves, even +though that activity be directed towards ends in which we do not +expect to share."</p> + +<p>At this point, Dennis, who had been struggling to speak, broke +in at last, in spite of Ellis's efforts to restrain him.</p> + +<p>"Why do you keep saying '<i>Our</i> Good'?" he cried. "Why do +you not say <i>the</i> Good? I can't understand this talk of me and +thee, our Good, and their Good, as if there were as many Goods as +there are people."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "the distinction, after all, was introduced by +Parry, who said that we ought to aim at the Good of a future +generation. Still, I admit that I was getting a little unhappy +myself at the kind of language into which I was betrayed. But what +I want to say is this: So far as it is true at all that it is good +to labour for future generations, goodness consists in the activity +of so labouring, as much, at least, as in the result produced in +those for whose sake the labour is. That, at least, is the only way +in which I can find the position reasonable at all."</p> + +<p>"I don't see it," said Parry, and was preparing to re-state his +position, when Wilson suddenly intervened with a new train of +thought.</p> + +<p>"The fact is," he said, "you have begun altogether at the wrong +end."</p> + +<p>"I daresay," I said, "I can't find the end; it's all such a +coil."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "this is where I believe the trouble came in. +You started with the idea that the Good must be good for +individuals; and that was sure to land you in confusion."</p> + +<p>"What then is your idea?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Why," he said, "as you might expect from a biologist, I regard +everything from the point of view of the species."</p> + +<p>At this I saw Ellis sit up and prepare for an encounter.</p> + +<p>"Nature," continued Wilson, "has always in view the Whole not +the Part, the species not the individual. And this law, which is +true of the whole creation, is thrown into special relief in the +case of man, because there the interest of the species is embodied +in a particular form—the Society or the State—and may +be clearly envisaged, as a thing apart, towards the maintenance of +which conscious efforts may be directed."</p> + +<p>"And this, which is the end of Nature, according to you, is also +the Good?"</p> + +<p>"Naturally."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "I will not recapitulate here the objections I +have already urged against the view that the course of Nature +determines the content of the Good. For, quite apart from that, it +is a view which many people hold—and one which was held long +before there was a science of biology—that the community is +the end, and the individual only the means."</p> + +<p>"But," he said, "biology has given a new basis and a new colour +to the view."</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that," cried Ellis, unable any longer to +restrain himself, "but I am sure it has given us a new kind of +language. In the old days, when Wilson's opinion was represented by +Plato, men were still men, and were spoken of as such, however much +they might be subordinated to the community. But now!—why, if +you open one of these sociological books, mostly, I am bound to +say, in German, 'Entwurf einer Sozial-anthropologie,' 'Versuch +einer anthropologischen Darstellung der menschlichen Gesellschaft +vom Sozial-biologischen Standpunkt aus,' and the like—you +will hardly be able to realize that you are dealing with human +beings at all. I have seen an unmarried woman called a 'female +non-childbearing human.' And at the worst, men actually cease to be +even animals; they become mere numbers; they are calculated by the +theory of combinations; they are masses, averages, classes, curves, +anything but men! For every million of the population, it has been +solemnly estimated, there will be one genius, one imbecile, 256,791 +individuals just above the mean, 256,791 just below it! Observe, +256,791! Not, as one might have been tempted to believe, 256,790! +What a saving grace in that odd unit! And this is the kind of thing +that is revolutionizing history and politics! No more great men, no +more heroic actions, no more inspirations, passions, and ideals! +Nothing but calculations of the chances that A will meet and breed +out of B! Nothing but analysis of the mechanism of survival! +Nothing but——"</p> + +<p>"My dear Ellis," interrupted Wilson, "you appear to me to be +digressing."</p> + +<p>"Digressing!" he cried "Would that I could digress out of this +world altogether! Would that I could digress to a planet where they +have no arithmetic! Where a man could be a man, not a figure in an +addition sum, a unit in an average, an individual in a +species——"</p> + +<p>"Where," exclaimed Audubon, taking him up, "a man could be +himself, as I have often said, 'imperial, plain, and true.'"</p> + +<p>There was a chorus of protestation at the too familiar +quotation; and for a time I was unable to lay hold of the broken +thread of the argument. But at last I got a hearing for the +question I was anxious to address to Wilson.</p> + +<p>"You say," I began, "that by Good we mean the Good of the +community?"</p> + +<p>"I say," he replied, "that that is what we ought to mean."</p> + +<p>"But in what sense do you understand the word community?"</p> + +<p>"In the sense of that organization of individuals which +represents, so to speak, the species."</p> + +<p>"How represents?"</p> + +<p>"In the sense that it is its function to maintain and perfect +the species."</p> + +<p>"But is that the function of the community?"</p> + +<p>"If it is not, it ought to be; and to a great extent it is. If +you look at the social mechanism, not with the eyes of a mere +historian, who usually sees nothing, but with those of a biologist +and man of science, intent upon essentials, you will find that it +is nothing but an elaborate apparatus of selection, natural or +artificial, as you like to call it. First, there is the struggle of +races, which may be traced not only in war and conquest, but more +insidiously under the guise of peace, so that, for example, at this +day you may witness throughout Europe the gradual extinction of the +long-headed fair by the round-headed dark stock. Then there is the +struggle of nation with nation, resulting in the gradual +elimination of the weaker—that, of course, is obvious enough; +but what is not always so clearly seen is the not less certain +fact, that within the limits of each society the same process is +everywhere at work. To pass over the economic struggle for +existence, of which we are perhaps sufficiently aware, what else is +our system of examinations but a mechanism of selection, whereby it +is determined that certain persons only shall have access to +certain professions? What else is the convention whereby marriages +are confined to people of the same class, thus securing the +perpetuation of certain types, and especially of the better-gifted +and better-disposed? Turn where we may we find the same phenomenon. +Society is a machine for sifting out the various elements of the +race, combining the like, disparting the unlike, bringing some to +the top, others to the bottom, preserving these, eliminating those, +indifferent to the fate, good or bad, of the individuals it +controls, but envisaging always the well-being of the Whole."</p> + +<p>"But," I objected, "is it so certain that it is well-being that +is kept in view? Do you not recognize a process of deterioration as +well as of improvement? You mentioned, for instance, that the +long-headed fair race, is giving place to what I understand is +regarded as an inferior type."</p> + +<p>"No doubt," he admitted, "there are periods of decline. Still, +on the whole, the movement is an upward one."</p> + +<p>"Well," I replied, "that, after all, is not the question we are +at present discussing. Your main point is, that when we speak of +Good we mean, or should mean, the Good, not of the individual, but +of the species. But what, I should like to know, is the species? Is +it somehow an entity, or being, that it has a Good?"</p> + +<p>"No," he replied, "it is merely, of course, a general name for +the individuals; only for all the individuals taken together, not +one by one or in groups."</p> + +<p>"The Good of the species, then, is the Good of all the +individuals taken together."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But" I said, "how can that be? It is good for the species, +according to you, that certain individuals should be eliminated, or +should sink to the bottom, or whatever else their fate may be. But +is that also good for the individual in question?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that," he replied, "and I don't see that it +matters. I only say that it is good for the species."</p> + +<p>"But they are part of the species; so that if it is good for the +species it is good for them."</p> + +<p>"No! for the Good of the species consists in the selection of +the best individuals. It is indifferent to all the rest"</p> + +<p>"Then by the Good of the species you mean the good of the +selected individuals?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly; I mean it is good that those individuals should be +selected."</p> + +<p>"But good for whom, if not for them? For the individuals who are +eliminated? Or for you who look on? Or perhaps, for God?"</p> + +<p>"God! No! I mean good, simply good."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I don't understand," I said. "Does Good then hang, +as it were, in the air, being Good for nobody at all?"</p> + +<p>"Well, if you like, we will say it is good for Nature."</p> + +<p>"But is Nature, then, a conscious being?"</p> + +<p>"I don't say that"</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry," I said, "but really I cannot understand you. +If you reject God, I see only two alternatives remaining. Either +the Good you speak of is that of all the individuals of the species +taken together, or it is that of the best individuals; and in +either case I seem to see difficulties."</p> + +<p>"What difficulties?" asked Parry. For Wilson did not speak.</p> + +<p>"Why," I said, "taking the first alternative, I do not see how +it can be good for the inferior individuals to be degraded or +eliminated. I should have thought, if there were any Good for them, +it would consist in their being made better."</p> + +<p>"I don't see that," objected Dennis; "it might be the best +possible thing, for them, to be eliminated."</p> + +<p>"But in that case," I said, "the best possible thing would be +absence of Bad, not Good. And so far as we could talk of Good at +all, we could not apply it to them?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not"</p> + +<p>"Well then, in that case we have to fall back upon the other +alternative, and say that by the Good of the species we mean that +of the ultimately selected individuals."</p> + +<p>"Well, what then?"</p> + +<p>"Why, then, we return, do we not, to the position of Parry, that +the Good is that of some particular generation? And there, too, we +were met by difficulties. So that altogether I do not really see +what meaning to attach to Wilson's conception."</p> + +<p>"There is no meaning to be attached to it!" cried Ellis. "The +species is a mere screen invented to conceal the massacre of +individuals. I'm sick of these +biologico-sociologico-anthropologico-historico treatises, with +their talk of races, of nations, of classes, never of men! their +prate about laws as if they were the real entities, and the people +who are supposed to be subject to them mere indifferent particles +of stuff! their analysis of the perfection with which the machine +works, its combinations, differentiations, subordinations, +co-ordinations, and all the other abominations of desolations +standing where they ought not, as depressing to the mind as they +are cacophonous to the ear! and, worst of all, their impudent +demand that we should admire the diabolical process! Admire! As +though we should be asked to admire the beauty of the rack and the +thumbscrew!"</p> + +<p>"It's a matter of taste, no doubt," said Wilson, "but in me the +spectacle of natural law does awaken feelings of admiration."</p> + +<p>"In me," replied Ellis, "it awakens, just as often, feelings of +disgust, and especially when its theatre is human life."</p> + +<p>"At any rate, whether you admire it or not, the spectacle is +there."</p> + +<p>"No doubt, if you choose to look at it; but why should you? It's +not a good drama; it isn't up to date; it has no first-hand +knowledge, nor original vision of life. It simply ignores all the +important facts."</p> + +<p>"Which do you call the important facts?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course, the emotions; the hopes, fears, aspirations, +sympathies and the rest! There's more valuable information +contained in even an inferior novel that in all the sociological +treatises that ever have been or will be written."</p> + +<p>"Oh, come!" cried Parry.</p> + +<p>"I assure you," replied Ellis, "I am serious. Take, for example, +these unfortunate creatures who are in process of elimination. To +the sociologist their elimination is their only <i>raison +d'être</i>. He cancels them out with the same delight as if +they were figures in a complex fraction. But pick up any novel +dealing with the life of the slums, and you find that these figures +are really composed of innumerable individual units, existing each +for himself, and each his own sufficient justification, each a +sacred book comprising its own unique secret, a master-piece of the +divine tragedian, a universe self-moved and self-contained, a +centre of infinity, a mirror of totality, in a word, a human +soul."</p> + +<p>"All that I altogether deny," said Wilson, "but, even if it were +true, it would not affect the sociological laws."</p> + +<p>"I don't say it would. I only say that the sociological laws are +as unimportant, if possible, as the law of gravitation."</p> + +<p>"Which," replied Wilson, "may be regarded as a <i>reductio ad +absurdum</i> of your view."</p> + +<p>"Anyhow," I interposed, "we are digressing from our point. What +I really want to know is whether Wilson has any more light to throw +on my difficulties with regard to his notion of the species."</p> + +<p>"I have nothing more to say," he replied, "than I have said +already."</p> + +<p>"But I have!" cried Dennis, "and something very much to the +point. You see now the absurdities into which you are led by the +position you insisted on assuming, that Good involves conscious +activity. If it does, as you rightly inquired (though with a +suicidal audacity), conscious activity in whom? And to that +question, of course, you can find no answer."</p> + +<p>"And yet," I said, endeavouring to turn the tables upon him, "I +have known you to maintain yourself that Good not merely involves, +but is, a conscious activity; only an activity in or of God."</p> + +<p>"Rather," he replied, "that it <i>is</i> God. But I don't really +know whether we ought to call God a conscious activity. Whatever He +or It be, is something that transcends our imagination. Only the +things we call good are somehow reflexes of God; and we have to +accept them as such without further inquiry. At any rate, we have +no right to endeavour, as you keep doing, to locate Good in some +individual persons."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "here we come again to a fundamental difference +of view. All the Good of which I am aware as actually existing is +associated, somehow or other, with personal consciousness. I am +willing to admit, for the sake of argument, that the ultimate Good, +if ever we come to know it, might, perhaps, not be so associated. +But of that, as yet, I know nothing; you, perhaps, are more +fortunate. And if you can give us an account of Good, I mean, of +course, of its content, which shall represent it intelligibly to us +as independent of any consciousness like our own, I am quite ready +to relinquish the argument to you."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he replied, "that I can represent It to you in a +way that you would admit to be intelligible. I don't profess to +have had what you call 'experience' of it."</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said Ellis, "what's the good of talking?"</p> + +<p>"What, indeed!" I echoed, in some despondency. For I began to +feel it was impossible to carry on the conversation. But at this +point, to my great relief, Bartlett came to the rescue, not indeed +with a solution of the difficulty in which we were involved, but +with a diversion of which I was only too glad to take +advantage.</p> + +<p>"It seems to me," he said, "that you are getting off the track! +Whatever the ultimate Good may be, what we really want to know, is +the kind of thing we can conceive to be good for people like +ourselves. And I thought that was what you were going to +discuss."</p> + +<p>"So I was," I said, "if Dennis would have let me."</p> + +<p>"I will let you, by all means," Dennis interposed, "so long as +it is quite understood that everything you say has nothing to do +with the real subject."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Bartlett, "that's understood. And now let's +get along, on the basis of you and me and the man in the street. +What are we trying to get, when we try to get Good? That I take it +is the real question."</p> + +<p>"And I can only answer," I said, "as I did before, that we are +trying to get some state of conscious experience, to enter into +some activity."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, what activity?" he inquired, catching me up +sharp, as if he were afraid of Dennis interposing again.</p> + +<p>"What activity!" cried Ellis, "why all and every one as much as +another, and the more the merrier."</p> + +<p>"What!" I exclaimed, rather taken aback, "all at once do you +mean? whether they be good or whether they be bad, all alike +indifferently?"</p> + +<p>"There are no bad activities," he replied, "none bad essentially +in themselves. Their goodness and badness depends on the way in +which they are interchanged or combined. Any pursuit or occupation +palls in time if it is followed exclusively; but all may be +delightful in the just measure and proportion. We are complex +creatures, and we ought to employ all our faculties alike, never +one alone at the cost of all the others."</p> + +<p>"That may be sound enough," I said, "but will you not describe +more in detail the kind of life which you consider to be good?"</p> + +<p>"How can I?" he replied. "It is like trying to sum infinity! The +most I can do is to hint and rhapsodize."</p> + +<p>"Hint away, then!" cried Parry; "rhapsodize away! we're all +listening."</p> + +<p>"Well, then," he said, "my ideal of the good life would be to +move in a cycle of ever-changing activity, tasting to the full the +peculiar flavour of each new phase in the shock of its contrast +with that of all the rest. To pass, let us say, from the city with +all its bustle, smoke, and din, its press of business, gaiety, and +crime, straight away, without word or warning, breaking all +engagements, to the farthest and loneliest corner of the world. To +hunt or fish for weeks and months in strange wild places, camping +out among strange beasts and birds, lost in pathless forests, or +wandering over silent plains. Then, suddenly, back in the crowd, to +feel the press of business, to make or lose millions in a week, to +adventure, compete, and win; but always, at the moment when this +might pall, with a haven of rest in view, an ancient English +mansion, stately, formal, and august, islanded, over its sunken +fence, by acres of buttercups. There to study, perhaps to write, +perhaps to experiment, dreaming in my garden at night of new +discoveries, to revolutionize science and bring the world of +commerce to my feet. Then, before I have time to tire, to be off on +my travels again, washing gold in Klondike, trading for furs in +Siberia, fighting in Madagascar, in Cuba, or in Crete, or smoking +hasheesh in tents with Persian mystics. To make my end action +itself, not anything action may gain, choosing not to pursue the +Good for fear I should let slip Goods, but, in my pursuit of Goods, +attaining the only Good I can conceive—a full and harmonious +exercise of all my faculties and powers."</p> + +<p>On hearing him speak thus I felt, I confess, such a warmth of +sympathy that I hesitated to attempt an answer. But Leslie, who was +young enough still to live mainly in ideas, broke in with his usual +zeal and passion.</p> + +<p>"But," he said, "all this activity of which you speak is no more +good than it is bad; every phase of it, by your own confession, is +so imperfect in itself that it requires to be constantly exchanged +for some other, equally defective."</p> + +<p>"Not at all," answered Ellis, "each phase is good in its time +and place; but each becomes bad if it is pursued exclusively to the +detriment of others."</p> + +<p>"But is each good in itself? or, at least, is it more good than +bad? You choose, in imagination, to dwell upon the good aspect of +each; but in practice you would have to experience also the bad. +Your hunting in trackless forests will involve exposure, fatigue, +and hunger; your fighting in Madagascar, fever, wounds, and +disillusionment; and so through all your chapter of +accidents—for accidents they are at best, and never the +substance of Good; rather, indeed, a substance of Evil, dogged by a +shadow of Good."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" cried Ellis, "what a horrid prosaic view—from an +idealist, too! Why, the Bad is all part of the Good; one takes the +rough with the smooth. Or rather the Good stands above what you +call good and bad; it consists in the activity itself which feeds +upon both alike. If I were Dennis I should say it is the synthesis +of both."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Leslie, "I never heard before of a synthesis +produced by one side of the antithesis simply swallowing the +other."</p> + +<p>"Didn't you?" said Ellis. "Then you have a great deal yet to +learn. This is known as the synthesis of the lion and the +lamb."</p> + +<p>"Oh, synthesis!" cried Parry. "Heaven save us from synthesis! +What is it you are trying to say?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I want to know," I said "We seem to be coming +perilously near to Dennis's position, that what we call Evil is +mere appearance."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Ellis, "extremes meet! Dennis arrived at his view +by a denial of the world; I arrive at mine by an affirmation of +it."</p> + +<p>"But do you really think," I urged, "that everything in the +world is good?"</p> + +<p>"I think," he replied, "that everything may be made to minister +to Good if you approach it in the proper way."</p> + +<p>"That reads," said Audubon, "like an extract from a sermon."</p> + +<p>"As I remarked before," replied Ellis, "extremes meet"</p> + +<p>"But, Ellis," I protested, "do explain! How are you going to +answer Leslie?"</p> + +<p>"Leslie is really too young," he replied, "to be answerable at +all. But if you insist on my being serious, what I meant to suggest +is, that when our activity is freshest and keenest we find delight +in what is called Evil no less than in what is called Good. The +complexity of the world charms us, its 'downs' as well as its +'ups,' its abysses and glooms no less than its sunny levels. We +would not alter it if we could; it is better than we could make it; +and we accept it not merely with acquiescence but with +triumph."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do we!" said Audubon.</p> + +<p>"We," answered Ellis, "not you! You, of course, do not accept +anything."</p> + +<p>"But who are 'we'?" asked Leslie.</p> + +<p>"All of us," he replied, "who try to make an art of living. Yes, +art, that is the word! To me life appears like a great +tragi-comedy. It has its shadows as well as its lights, but we +would not lose one of them, for fear of destroying the harmony of +the whole. Call it good, or call it bad, no matter, so it is. The +villain no less than the hero claims our applause; it would be dull +without him. We can't afford to miss anything or anyone."</p> + +<p>"In fact," cried Audubon, "'Konx Ompax! Totality!' You and +Dennis are strangely agreed for once!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "but for very different reasons, as the judge +said on the one occasion when he concurred with his colleagues. +Dennis accepts the Whole because he finds it a perfect logical +system; I, because I find it a perfect work of art. His prophet is +Hegel; mine is Walt Whitman."</p> + +<p>"Walt Whitman! And you profess to be an artist!"</p> + +<p>"So was he, not in words but in life. One thing to him was no +better nor worse than another; small and great, high and low, good +and bad, he accepts them all, with the instinctive delight of an +actual physical contact. Listen to him!" And he began to quote:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"I do not call one greater and one +smaller,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That which fills its period and +place is equal to any.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I believe a leaf of grass is no +less than the journey-work of the stars.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the pismire is equally perfect, +and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the tree-toad is a +'chef-d'oeuvre' for the highest;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the running blackberry would +adorn the parlours of heaven,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the narrowest hinge in my hand +puts to scorn all machinery,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the cow-crunching with +depressed head surpasses any statue,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And a mouse is miracle enough to +stagger sextillions of infidels."</span><br> + + +<p>"That's all very well," objected Leslie, "though, of course, +it's rather absurd; but it does not touch the question of evil at +all."</p> + +<p>"Wait a bit," cried Ellis, "he's ready for you there."</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"I am not the poet of goodness +only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness +also.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">What blurt is this about virtue and +about vice?</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Evil propels me and reform of evil +propels me, I stand indifferent,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My gait is no fault-finder's or +rejector's gait,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I moisten the roots of all that +grows."</span><br> + + +<hr style="width: 10%;"> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"This is the meal equally set, this +is the meat for natural hunger,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It is for the wicked just the same +as the righteous, I make appointment with all,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I will not have a single person +slighted or kept away,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The kept-woman, spunger, thief are +hereby invited,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The heavy-lipped slave is invited, +the venerealee is invited;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There shall be no difference +between them and the rest."</span><br> + + +<p>"That's rather strong," remarked Parry.</p> + +<p>"Don't you like it?" Ellis inquired.</p> + +<p>"I think I might like it if I were drunk."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but a poet, you see, is always drunk!"</p> + +<p>'Well, I unfortunately, am often sober; and then I find the +sponger and the venerealee anything but agreeable objects."</p> + +<p>"Besides," said Audubon, "though it's very good of Walt Whitman +to invite us all, the mere fact of dining with him, however +miscellaneous the company, doesn't alter the character of the +dinner."</p> + +<p>"No," cried Leslie, "and that's just the point Ellis has missed +all through. Even if it be true that the world appears to him as a +work of art, it doesn't appear so to the personages of the drama. +What's play to him is grim earnest to them; and, what's more, he +himself is an actor not a mere spectator, and may have that fact +brought home to him, any moment, in his flesh and blood."</p> + +<p>"Of course!" replied Ellis, "and I wouldn't have it otherwise. +The point of the position is that one should play one's part +oneself, but play it as an artist with one's eye upon the total +effect, never complaining of Evil merely because one happens to +suffer, but taking the suffering itself as an element in the +æsthetic perfection of the Whole."</p> + +<p>"I should like to see you doing that," said Bartlett, rather +brutally, "when you were down with a fit of yellow fever."</p> + +<p>"Or shut up in a mad-house," said Leslie.</p> + +<p>"Or working eight hours a day at business," said Audubon, "with +the thermometer 100 degrees in the shade."</p> + +<p>"Oh well," answered Ellis, "those are the confounded accidents +of our unhealthy habits of life."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid," I said, "they are accidents very essential to the +substance of the world."</p> + +<p>"Besides," cried Parry, "there's the whole moral question, which +you seem to ignore altogether. If there be any activity that is +good, it must be, I suppose, the one that is right; and the +activity you describe seems to have nothing to do with right and +wrong."</p> + +<p>"Right and wrong! Right and wrong!" echoed Ellis,</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Das hör ich sechzlg Jahre +wiederholen,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ich fluche drauf, aber +verstohlen."</span><br> + + +<p>"You may curse as much as you like," replied Parry, "but you can +hardly deny that there is an intimate connection between Good and +Right."</p> + +<p>Instead of replying Ellis began to whistle; so I took up Parry's +point and said, "Yes, but what is the connection? My own idea is +that Right is really a means to Good. And I should separate off all +activity that is merely a means from that which is really an end in +itself, and good."</p> + +<p>"But is there any activity," objected Leslie, "which is not +merely a means?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," I said, "I should have thought so. Most men, it seems +to me, are well enough content with what they are doing for its own +sake; even though at the same time they have remoter ends in view, +and if these were cut off would cease, perhaps, to take pleasure in +the work of the moment. The attitude is not very logical, perhaps, +but I think it is very common. Why else is it that men who believe +and maintain that they only work in order to make money, +nevertheless are so unwilling to retire when the money is made; or, +if they do, are so often dissatisfied and unhappy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Audubon, "that is only because boredom is worse than +pain. It is not that they find any satisfaction in their work; it's +only that they find even greater distress in idleness."</p> + +<p>"But, surely," I replied, "even you yourself would hardly +maintain that there is nothing men do for its own sake, and because +they take delight in it. If there were nothing else at least there +is play—and I have known you play cricket yourself!"</p> + +<p>"Known him play cricket!" cried Ellis. "Why, if he had his way, +he would do nothing else, except at the times when he was riding or +shooting."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "that's enough, for the moment, to refute him. +And, in fact, I suppose none of us would seriously maintain that +there is no form of activity which men feel to be good for its own +sake, though the Good of course may be partial and precarious."</p> + +<p>"No," said Ellis, "I should rather inquire whether there is any +form which they pursue merely and exclusively as a means to +something else."</p> + +<p>"Oh, surely!" I said. "One might mention, for instance, the act +of visiting the dentist. Or what is more important, and what, I +suppose, Parry had in his mind, there is the whole class of +activities which one distinguishes as moral."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say," said Parry, "that moral action has no Good +in itself but is only a means to some other Good?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," I replied; "I am rather inclined to think so. +But it all depends upon how we define it."</p> + +<p>"And how do you define it?"</p> + +<p>"I should say that its specific quality consists in the refusal +to seize some immediate and inferior Good with a view to the +attainment of one that is remoter but higher."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, of course," cried Leslie, "if you define it so, your +proposition follows of itself."</p> + +<p>"So I thought," I said. "But how would you define it?"</p> + +<p>"I should say it is a free and perfect activity in Good."</p> + +<p>"In that case, it is of course the very activity we are in quest +of, and we should come upon it, if we were successful, at the end +of our inquiry. But I was supposing that the essence of morality is +expressed in the word 'ought'; and in that I take to be implied the +definition I suggested—namely, action pursued not for its own +sake, but for the sake of something else."</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh!" cried Dennis, "there I really must protest! I've kept +silent as long as I possibly could; but when it comes to describing +as a mere means the only kind of activity which is an end in +itself——"</p> + +<p>"The only kind that is an end in itself!" I repeated, in some +dismay. "Is that really what you think?"</p> + +<p>"Of course it is! why not?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I have always supposed that, when we are doing +what we ought, we are acting with a view to some ultimate +Good."</p> + +<p>"Well, I, on the contrary, believe that we ought absolutely, +without reference to anything else. It is a unique form of +activity, dependent on nothing but itself; and for anything we have +yet shown, it may be the Good we are in quest of."</p> + +<p>This suggestion, unexpected as it was, threw me into great +perplexity. I did not see exactly how to meet it; yet it awakened +no response in me, nor as I thought In any of the others. But while +I was hesitating, Leslie began:</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that the Good might consist simply in doing what we +ought, without any other accompaniment or conditions?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think it might."</p> + +<p>"So that, for example, a man might be in possession of the Good, +even while he was being racked or burnt alive, so long only as he +was doing what he ought"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose he might be."</p> + +<p>"It's a trifle paradoxical," said Ellis.</p> + +<p>"In fact," added Bartlett, "it might be called nonsense."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why," replied Dennis; "for we haven't yet shown +that the Good is dependent on the things we call good."</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "but we did show—or at least for the time +being we agreed to admit—that it must have some relation to +what we call goods; that they do somehow or other, and more or +less, express its nature; and indeed our whole present inquiry is +based upon the hypothesis that it is by examining goods that we may +get to know something about the Good. So that I do not see how we +can entertain an idea of Good which flatly contradicts all our +experience of goods."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Dennis, "I ought perhaps to modify the position. +Let us say that the Good consists in the activity of doing what we +ought, only that activity can't exist in its true perfection unless +everybody participates in it at once. But if everybody participated +in it, there would be no more burnings; and so Leslie's difficulty +would not arise."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "the modification is very radical! But even so, +I don't know what to make of the position. For it is very difficult +to conceive a society perpetually and exclusively occupied, so to +speak, in 'oughting.' Just imagine the kind of life It would +be—without pleasure, without business, without knowledge, +without anything at all analogous to what we call good, purged +wholly and completely of all that might taint the purity of the +moral sense, of philanthropy, of friendship, of love, even, I +suppose, of the love of virtue, a life simply of obligation, +without anything to be obliged to except a law."</p> + +<p>"But," he protested, "you are taking an absurd and impossible +case."</p> + +<p>"I am taking the case which you yourself put, when you said that +Good consisted simply in doing what one ought, independently of all +other accompaniment or condition. But perhaps that is not what you +really meant?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said; "of course, what I meant was that it is life +according to the moral law that is Good; but I did not intend to +separate the law from the life, and call it Good all by +itself."</p> + +<p>"But is the life the better for the law, in the sense, I mean, +in which law involves constraint? Or would it not be better still +if the same life were pursued freely for its own sake?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps so."</p> + +<p>"But, then, in that case, the more we realized Good the less we +should be aware of obligation. And would a life without conscious +and felt obligation be a life specifically ethical, in the sense in +which you seemed to be using the word?"</p> + +<p>"I should think not; for 'ought' in the ethical sense does +certainly seem to me to involve the idea of obligation."</p> + +<p>"In that case it would seem to be truer to say that activity is +Good, not in so far as it is ethical but precisely in so far as it +is not. At any rate, I should maintain that we come nearer to a +realization of Good in the activities which we pursue without +effort or friction, than in those which involve a struggle between +duty and inclination."</p> + +<p>"But the activities we pursue without effort or friction often +enough are bad."</p> + +<p>"No doubt; but some of them are good, and it is to those I +should look for the best idea I could form of what Good might +be."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "go on! Once more I have entered my protest; +and now I leave the road clear."</p> + +<p>"The worst of you is," said Ellis, "that you always turn up in +front! When we think we have passed you once for all, you take a +short cut across the fields, and there you are in the middle of the +road, with the same old story, that we're altogether on the wrong +track."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Dennis, sententiously, "I do my duty."</p> + +<p>"And," replied Ellis, "no doubt you have your reward! Proceed!" +he continued, turning to me.</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "I suppose I must try to go through to the end, +though these tactics of Dennis make me very nervous. I shall +suppose, however, that I have convinced him that it is not in +ethical activity as such that we can expect to find the most +perfect example of Good. And now I propose to examine in turn some +other of our activities, starting with that which seems to be the +most primitive of all."</p> + +<p>"And which is that?"</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of the activity of our bodily senses, our direct +contact, so to speak, with objects, without the intermediation of +reflection, through the touch, the sight, the hearing, and the +rest. Is there anything in all this which we could call good?"</p> + +<p>"Is there anything!" cried Ellis. "What a question to ask!" And +he broke out with the lines from Browning's "Saul":</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Oh, the wild joys of living! the +leaping from rock up to rock,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The strong rending of boughs from +the fir-tree, the cool silver shock</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the plunge in a pool's living +water, the hunt of the bear,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the sultriness showing the lion +is couched in his lair.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the meal, the rich dates +yellowed over with gold dust divine,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the locust-flesh steeped in the +pitcher, the full draught of wine,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the sleep in the dried +river-channel where bulrushes tell</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That the water was wont to go +warbling so softly and well.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How good is man's life, the mere +living! how fit to employ</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All the heart and the soul and the +senses for ever in joy."</span><br> + + +<p>The quotation seemed to loosen all tongues; and there followed a +flood of such talk as may be heard in almost every company of +Englishmen, in praise of sport and physical exercise, touched with +a sentiment not far removed from poetry—the only poetry of +which they are not half-ashamed. Audubon even joined in, forgetting +for the moment his customary pose, and rhapsodizing with the rest +over his favourite pursuits of snipe-shooting and cricket. Much of +this talk was lost upon me, for I am nothing of a sportsman; but +some touches there were that recalled experiences of my own, and +for that reason, I suppose, have lingered in my memory. Thus, I +recollect, some one spoke of skating on Derwentwater, the miles of +black, virgin ice, the ringing and roaring of the skates, the +sunset glow, and the moon rising full over the mountains; and +another recalled a bathe on the shore of Ægina, the sun on +the rocks and the hot scent of the firs, as though the whole naked +body were plunged in some æthereal liqueur, drinking it in +with every sense and at every pore, like a great sponge of sheer +sensation. After some minutes of this talk, as I still sat silent, +Ellis turned to me with the appeal, "But what about you, who are +supposed to be our protagonist? Here are we all rhapsodizing and +you sit silent. Have you nothing to contribute to your own +theme?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," I replied, "any experiences of mine would be so trivial +they would be hardly worth recording. The most that could be said +of them would be that they might, perhaps, illustrate more exactly +than yours what one might call the pure Goods of sense. For, as far +as I can understand, the delights you have been describing are +really very complex. In addition to pleasures of mere sensation, +there is clearly an æsthetic charm—you kept speaking of +heather and sunrises, and colours and wide prospects; and then +there is the satisfaction you evidently feel in skill, acquiring or +acquired, and in the knowledge you possess of the habits of beasts +and birds. All this, of course, goes beyond the delight of simple +sense perception, though, no doubt, inextricably bound up with it +But what I was thinking of at first was something less complex and +more elementary in which, nevertheless, I think we can detect +Good—Good of sheer unadulterated sensation. Think, for +example, of the joys of a cold bath when one is dusty and hot! You +will laugh at me, but sometimes when I have felt the water pouring +down my back I have shouted to myself in my tub 'nunc +dimittis.'"</p> + +<p>They burst out laughing, and Ellis cried:</p> + +<p>"You gross sensualist! And to think of all this being concealed +behind that masque of austere philosophy!"</p> + +<p>Then they set off again In praise of the delights of such simple +sensations, and especially of those of the palate, instancing, I +remember, the famous tale about Keats—how he covered his +tongue and throat with cayenne pepper that he might enjoy, as he +said, "the delicious coolness of claret in all its glory." And when +this had gone on for some time, "Perhaps enough has been said," I +began, "to illustrate this particular kind of Good. We have, I +think, recognized to the full its merits; and we shall be equally +ready, I suppose, to recognize its defects."</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that," said Ellis. "I, for my part, at any +rate, shall be very loth to dwell upon them. I sometimes think +these are the only pure Goods."</p> + +<p>"But at least," I replied, "you will admit that they are +precarious. It is only at moments, and at moments that come and go +without choice of ours, that this harmonious relation becomes +established between our senses and the outer world. The very same +things which at such times appear to be perfectly at one with +ourselves, as if they had been made for us and we for them, we see +and feel to have also a nature not only distinct but even alien and +hostile to our own. The water which cools our skin and quenches our +thirst also drowns; the fire which warms and comforts also burns; +and so on through all the chapter—I need not weary you with +details. Nature, you will agree, not only ministers to our bodies, +she torments and destroys them; she is our foe in ways at least as +varied and efficacious as she is our friend."</p> + +<p>"But," objected Ellis, "that is only because we don't treat her +properly; we have to learn how to manage her."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," I replied, "though I should prefer to say, we have to +learn how to fight and subdue her. But in any case we have laid our +finger here upon a defect in this first kind of Goods—they +are, as I said, precarious. And the discovery of that fact, one +might say, was the sword of the angel that drove man out of his +imaginary Eden. For at first we may suppose him, (if Wilson will +permit me to romance a little,) seizing every delight as it offered +itself, under an instinctive impression that there were nothing but +delights to be met with, eating when he was hungry, drinking when +he was thirsty, sleeping when he was tired, and so on, in +unquestioning trust of his natural impulses. But then, as he learnt +by experience how evil follows good, and pleasure often enough is +bought by pain, he would begin, would he not, instead of simply +accepting Good where it is, to endeavour to create it where it is +not, sacrificing often enough the present to the future, and +rejecting many immediate delights for the sake of those more +remote? And this involves a complete change in his attitude; for he +is endeavouring now to establish by his own effort that harmony +between himself and the world which he fondly hoped at first was +immediately given."</p> + +<p>"But," objected Wilson, "he never did hope anything of the kind. +This reconstruction of the past is all imaginary."</p> + +<p>"I dare say it may be," I replied, "but that is of little +consequence, if it helps us to seize our point more clearly; for we +are not at present writing history. Man, then, we will suppose, is +thus set out upon what is, whether he knows it or not, his quest to +create, since he is unable to find ready-made, a world of objects +harmonious to himself. But in this quest has he been, should you +say, successful?"</p> + +<p>"More or less, I suppose," answered Parry, "for he is +progressively satisfying his needs, even if they are never +completely satisfied."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," I replied, "though I sometimes have my doubts. The +relation of man to nature, I have thought, is very strange and +obscure. It is as though he began with the idea that he had only to +remove a few blemishes from her face to make her completely +accordant with his desire. But no sooner has he gone to work than +these surface blemishes, as he thought them, prove to have roots +deeper than all his probings; the more he cuts away the more he +exposes of an element radically alien to himself, terrible and +incomprehensible, branching wide and striking deep, and throwing up +from depths unknown those symptoms and symbols of itself which he +mistook for mere superficial stains."</p> + +<p>"Really," protested Parry, "I see no grounds for such a +view."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not," I said, "but anyhow you will, I suppose, admit +that a certain precariousness does attach to these Goods of sense, +whether they be freely offered by nature or painfully acquired by +the labour of man."</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily," he objected, "for we are constantly reducing +to order and routine what was once haphazard and uncontrolled. For +the great mass of civilized men the primitive goods of life, food, +shelter, clothing and the like, are practically secured against all +chance."</p> + +<p>"Are they?" cried Bartlett, "I admire your optimism!"</p> + +<p>"And I too," I said. "But even granting that it were as you say, +we are then met by this curious fact, that the Goods we really care +about, in our practical activity, are never those that are secure +but those that are precarious. As soon as we are safe against one +risk we proceed to take another, so that there is always a margin, +as it were, of precarious Goods, and those exactly the ones which +we hold most precious."</p> + +<p>"In fact," said Audubon, "as soon as you get your Good it ceases +to be good. That's precisely what I am always saying."</p> + +<p>"Then," I said, "there is the less need to labour the point. One +way or other, it seems, either because they are difficult to +secure, or because, when secured, they lose their specific quality. +Goods of this kind are caught in the wheels of chance and change, +whether they be offered to man by the free gift of Nature, or wrung +from her in the sweat of his brow. In other words, they are, as I +said, precarious. And now, have they any other defects?"</p> + +<p>"Have they any?" cried Leslie, "why they have nothing else!"</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "but what in particular?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," he replied, "it's all summed up, I suppose, in the fact +that they are Goods of sense, and not of intellect or of +imagination."</p> + +<p>"Is it then," I asked, "a defect in content that you are driving +at? Do you mean that they satisfy only a part of our nature, not +the whole? For that, I suppose, would be equally true of the other +Goods you mentioned, such as those of the intellect."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "but it is the inferior part to which the +Goods we are speaking of appeal."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps; but in what respect inferior?"</p> + +<p>"Why, simply as the body is inferior to the soul."</p> + +<p>"But how is that? You will think me very stupid, but the more I +think of it the less I understand this famous distinction between +body and soul, and the relation of one to the other."</p> + +<p>"I doubt," said Wilson, "whether there is a distinction at +all."</p> + +<p>"I don't say that," I replied. "I only say that I can't +understand it; and I should be thankful, if possible, to keep it +out of our discussion."</p> + +<p>"So should I!" said Wilson.</p> + +<p>"Well, but," Leslie protested, "how can we?"</p> + +<p>"I think perhaps we might," I said. "For instance, in the case +before us, why should we not try directly to define that specific +property of the Goods of sense which, according to you, constitutes +their defect, without having recourse to these difficult terms body +and soul at all?"</p> + +<p>"Well," he agreed, "we might try."</p> + +<p>"What, then" I said, "do you suggest?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated a little, and then began in a tentative kind of +way:</p> + +<p>"I think what I feel about these Goods is that we are somehow +their slaves; they possess us, instead of our possessing them. They +come upon us we hardly know how or whence; they satisfy our desires +we can't tell why; our relation to them seems to be passive rather +than active."</p> + +<p>"And that, you think, would not be the case with a true and +perfect Good?"</p> + +<p>"No, I think not"</p> + +<p>"How, then, should we feel towards such a Good?"</p> + +<p>"We should feel, I think, that it was somehow an expression of +ourselves, and we of it; that it was its nature and its whole +nature to present itself as a Good and our nature and our whole +nature to experience it as such. There would be nothing in It alien +to us and nothing in us alien to it."</p> + +<p>"Whereas in the case of Goods of sense——?"</p> + +<p>"Whereas in their case," he said, "surely nothing of the kind +applies. For these Goods appear to arise in things and under +circumstances which have quite another nature than that of being +good for us. It is not the essence of water to quench our thirst, +of fire to cook for us, or of the sun to give us +light——"</p> + +<p>"Or of cork-trees to stop our ginger-beer bottles," added +Ellis.</p> + +<p>"Quite so," he continued; "in every case these things that do us +good are also quite as ready to do us harm, and, for that matter, +to do innumerable things which have no relation to us at all. So +that the goodness they have in them, so far as it is goodness to +our senses, they have, as it were, only by accident; and we feel +that essentially either they are not Goods, or their goodness is +something beyond and different from that which is revealed to +sense."</p> + +<p>"Your quarrel, then" I said, "with the Goods of sense, so far as +I understand you, is that they inhere, as it were, in a substance +which, so far as we can tell, is indifferent to Good, or at any +rate to Good of that kind?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Whereas a true Good, you think, must be good in essence and +substance?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; don't you think so too?"</p> + +<p>"I do," I replied, "but how about the others?"</p> + +<p>Dennis assented, and the others did not object, not appearing, +indeed, to have attended much to the argument. So I continued, "We +have then, so far, discovered in this class of Goods, two main +defects, the first, that they are precarious; the second, which is +closely connected with the other, and is in fact, I suppose, its +explanation, that they are, shall we say, accidental, understanding +the word in the sense we have just defined. Now, let us see if we +cannot find any class of Goods similar to these, but free from +their defects."</p> + +<p>"But similar in what respect," he asked, "if they are not to +have similar defects?"</p> + +<p>"Similar, I meant, in being direct presentations to sense."</p> + +<p>"But are there any such Goods?"</p> + +<p>"I think so," I said. "What do you say to works of Art? These, +are they not, are direct presentations to sense? Yet such that it +is their whole nature and essence on the one hand to be beautiful, +and to that extent Good—for I suppose you will admit that the +Beautiful is a kind of Good; and on the other hand, if I may dare +to say so, to be, in a certain sense, eternal."</p> + +<p>"Eternal!" cried Ellis, "I only wish they were! What wouldn't we +give for the works of Polygnotus and Apelles!"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," I said, "of course, in that way, regarded as material +objects, they are as perishable as all the works of nature. But I +was talking of them as Art, not as mere things; and from that point +of view, surely, each is a moment, or a series of moments, cut +away, as it were, from the contact of chance or change and set +apart in a timeless world of its own, never of its own nature, to +pass into something else, but only through the alien nature of the +matter to which it is bound."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" cried Parry. "I am quite at sea."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," I said, "you will understand the point better if I +give it you in the words of a poet."</p> + +<p>And I quoted the well-known stanzas from Keats' "Ode on a +Grecian Urn":</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Heard melodies are sweet, but +those unheard</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft +pipes, play on;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not to the sensual ear, but, more +endear'd.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pipe to the spirit ditties of no +tone;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fair youth beneath the trees, thou +canst not leave</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thy song, nor ever can those trees +be bare;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bold lover, never, never canst thou +kiss,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though winning near the +goal—yet, do not grieve;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">She cannot fade, though thou hast +not thy bliss,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ever wilt thou love and she be +fair!</span><br><br> + <span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Ah, happy, happy boughs! that +cannot shed</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Your leaves, nor ever bid the +spring adieu;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And, happy melodist, +unwearied,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ever piping songs for ever +new;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More happy love! more happy, happy +love!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For ever warm and still to be +enjoyed,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For ever panting and for ever +young;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All breathing human passion far +above,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That leaves a heart high-sorrowful +and cloyed,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A burning forehead, and a parching +tongue."</span><br> + + +<p>"Well," said Parry, when I had done, "that's very pretty; but I +don't see how it bears on the argument."</p> + +<p>"I think," I replied, "that it illustrates the point I wanted to +make. Part, I mean, of the peculiar charm of works of Art consists +in the fact that they arrest a fleeting moment of delight, lift it +from our sphere of corruption and change, and fix it like a star in +the eighth heaven."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Ellis, "we grant you that"</p> + +<p>"Or at least," added Parry, "we don't care to dispute it"</p> + +<p>"And the other point which I want to make is, I think, clearer +still—that the Good of works of Art, that is to say their +Beauty, results from the very principle of their nature, and is not +a mere accident of circumstances."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Leslie, "their Beauty is their only <i>raison +d'être</i>?"</p> + +<p>"And yet," I went on, "they are still Goods of sense, and so far +resemble the other Goods of which we were speaking before."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Dennis, "but with what a difference! That is the +point I have been waiting to come to."</p> + +<p>"What point?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Why," he said, "in the case of what you call Goods of sense, in +their simplest and purest form, making abstraction from all +æsthetic and other elements—as in the example you gave +of a cold bath—the relation of the object to the sense is so +simple and direct, that really, if we were to speak accurately, we +should have, I think, to say, that so far as the perception of Good +is concerned the object is merged in the subject, and what you get +is simply a good sensation."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," I agreed, "that is how we ought to put it. But at the +time I did not think it necessary to be so precise."</p> + +<p>"But it has become necessary now, I think," he replied, "if we +are to bring out a characteristic of works of Art which will throw +light, I believe, on the general nature of Good."</p> + +<p>"What characteristic is that?"</p> + +<p>"Why," he replied, "when we come to works of Art, the important +thing is the object, not the subject; if there is any merging of +the one in the other, it is the subject that is merged in the +object, not <i>vice versa</i>. We have to contemplate the object, +anyhow, as having a character of its own; and it is to this +character that I want to draw attention."</p> + +<p>"In what respect?"</p> + +<p>"In respect that every work of Art, and, for that matter, every +work of nature—so far as it can be viewed +æsthetically—comprises a number of elements necessarily +connected in a whole; and this necessary connection is the point on +which we ought to insist"</p> + +<p>"But necessary how?" asked Wilson. "Do you mean logically +necessary?"</p> + +<p>"No," he replied, "æsthetically. I mean, that we have a +direct perception that nothing in the work could be omitted or +altered without destroying the whole. This, at any rate, is the +ideal; and it holds, more or less, in proportion as the work is +more or less perfect. Everyone, I suppose, who understands these +things would agree to that."</p> + +<p>No one seemed inclined to dispute the statement; certainly I was +not, myself; so I answered, "No doubt what you say is true of works +of Art; but will your contention be that it is also true of Good in +general?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I think so, in so far at least as Good is to be +conceived as comprising a number of elements. For no one, I +suppose, would imagine that such elements might be thrown together +haphazard and yet constitute a good whole."</p> + +<p>"I suppose not," I agreed, "and, if you are right, what we seem +to have arrived at is this: among the works which man creates in +his quest of the Good, there is one class, that of works of Art, +which, in the first place, may be said, in a sense, to be not +precarious, seeing that by their form, through which they are Art, +they are set above the flux of time, though by their matter, we +admit, they are bound to it And, in the second place, the Good +which they have, they have by virtue of their essence; Good is +their substance, not an accident of their changing relations. And, +lastly, being complex wholes, the parts of which they are composed +are bound together in necessary connection. These characteristics, +at any rate, we have discovered in works of Art: and no doubt many +more might be discoverable. But now, let us turn to the other side, +and consider the defects in which this class of Goods is +involved."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" cried Bartlett, "when you come to that, I have something +to say."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "what is it? We shall be glad of any help."</p> + +<p>"It can be summed up," he replied, "in a single word. Whatever +may be the merits of a work of Art—and they may be all that +you say—it has this one grand defect—it isn't +real!"</p> + +<p>"Real!" cried Leslie. "What is real? The word's the plague of my +life! People use it as if they meant something by it, something +very tremendous and august, and when you press them they never know +what it is. They talk of 'real life'—real life! what is it? +As if one life wasn't as real as another!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, as to real life," said Ellis, "I can tell you what that is. +Real life is the shady side of life."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," said Parry, "real life is the life of men of the +world."</p> + +<p>"Or," retorted Ellis, "more generally, it is the life of the +person speaking, as opposed to that of the person to whom he +speaks."</p> + +<p>"Well, but," I interposed, "it is not 'real life' that is our +present concern, but Bartlett's meaning when he used the word +'real.' In what sense is Art not real?"</p> + +<p>"Why," he replied, "by your own confession Art is something +ideal. It is beautiful, it is good, it is lifted above chance and +change; its connection with matter, that is to say with reality, is +a kind of flaw, an indecency from which we discreetly turn our +eyes. The real world is nothing of all this; on the contrary, it is +ugly, brutal, material, coarse, and bad as bad can be!"</p> + +<p>"I don't see that it is at all!" cried Leslie, "and, even if it +were, you have no right to assume that that is the reality of it. +How do you know that its reality doesn't consist precisely in the +Ideal, as all poets and philosophers have thought? And, in that +case, Art would be more real than what you would call Reality, +because it would represent the essence of the world, the thing it +would like to be if it could, and is, so far as it can. That was +Aristotle's view, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Then all I can say is," replied Bartlett, "that I don't agree +with Aristotle! Anyhow, even if Art represents what the world would +like to be, it certainly doesn't represent what it is."</p> + +<p>"I don't know; surely it does, sometimes," said Parry, "for +instance, there's the realistic novel!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that!" cried Ellis. "That's the most ideal of +all—only it's apt to be such bad idealism!"</p> + +<p>"Anyhow," said Bartlett, "in so far as it is real, it's not Art, +in the sense, in which we have been using the word."</p> + +<p>I began to be afraid that we should drift away into a discussion +of realism in Art. So, to recall the conversation to the point at +issue, I turned to Bartlett, and said:</p> + +<p>"Your criticism seems to me to be fair enough as far as it goes. +You say that the world of Art is a world by itself; that side by +side of it, and unaffected by it, moves the world of what you call +real life. And that whatever be the relation between the two +worlds, whether we are to say that the one imitates the other, or +interprets it, or idealizes it, it does not, in any case, set it +aside. Art is a refuge from life, not a substitute for it; a little +blessed island in the howling sea of fact. Its Good is thus only a +partial Good; whereas the true Good, I suppose, would be somehow +universal."</p> + +<p>"Still," said Leslie, "as far as it goes it is a Good without +blemish."</p> + +<p>"I am not so sure," I said, "even of that. I am inclined to +think that Bartlett's criticism, if we squeeze it tight, will yield +us more than we have yet got out of it—perhaps even more than +he knows is in it"</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say," cried Bartlett, "that you are coming +over to my side!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said, "like a spy to the enemy's camp to see where your +strength really lies."</p> + +<p>"I have no objection," he replied, "if it ends in your +discovering new defences for me."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "we shall see. Anyhow, this is what I had in my +mind. We were saying just now that when people talk about 'real +life,' the 'real world,' and so on, they are not always very clear +as to what they mean. But one thing, I think, perhaps they have +obscurely in their heads—that the Real is something from +which you cannot escape; something which forces itself upon you +without reference to choice or desire, having a nature of its own +which may or may not conform, more or less to yours, but in any +case is distinct and independent. That is why they would say, for +example, that the illusions of a madman are not real, meaning that +they do not represent real things, however vivid their appearance +may be, because they are the productions merely of his own +consciousness; whereas the very same appearances presented to a +sane man would be called without hesitation real, because they +would be conceived to proceed from objects having an independent +nature of their own. Something of this kind, I suppose, is included +in the notion 'real' as it is held by ordinary people."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps" said Leslie, "but what then? And how does it bear upon +Art?"</p> + +<p>"I am not sure," I replied, "but it occurred to me that works of +Art, though of course they are real objects, are such that a +certain violence, as it were, has been done to their reality in our +interest. What I mean will be best understood, I think, if we put +ourselves for the moment into the position of the artist. To him +certain materials are presented which of course are real in our +present acceptation of the term, being such as they are of their +own nature, without any dependence upon him. Upon these materials +he flings himself, and shapes them according to his desire, +impressing, as it were, his own nature upon theirs, till they +confront him as a kind of image of himself in an alien stuff. So +far, then, he has a Good, and a Good presented to him as real; but +for the Goodness of this reality he is himself responsible. In so +far as it is, so to speak, merely real, it has still the nature +which was first presented to him, before he began his work—a +nature indifferent, if not opposed, to all his operations, as is +shown by the fact that it changes and passes away into something +else, just as it would have done if he had never touched it. To +this nature he has, as I said, done a certain violence in order to +stamp upon it the appearance of Good; but the Good is still, in a +sense, only an appearance; the reality of the thing remains +independent and alien. So that what the man has found, in so far as +he has found Good, is after all only a form of himself; and one can +conceive him feeling a kind of despair, like that of Wotan in the +Walküre, when in his quest for a free, substantial, +self-subsistent Good he finds after all, for ever, nothing but +images of himself:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'Das Andre, das ich +ersehne,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Das Andre, erseh' ich +nie.'</span><br> + + +<p>"I don't know whether what I am saying is intelligible, for I +find it rather hard to put it into words."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I think I understand. But what you are saying, +so far as it is true, seems to be true only for the artist himself. +To all others the work of Art must appear as something independent +of themselves."</p> + +<p>"True," I said, "and yet I think that they too feel, or might be +made to fed if it were brought home to them, this same antagonism +between the nature of the stuff and the form that has been given to +it. The form will seem from this point of view something factitious +and artificial given to the stuff, not indeed by themselves, but by +one like themselves, and in their interest. They will contrast, +perhaps, as is often done, a picture of the landscape with the +landscape Itself. The picture, they will say, however beautiful, is +not a 'natural' Good, not a real Good, not a Good in its own right; +it is a kind of makeshift produced by human effort, beautiful, if +you will, admirable, if you will, to be sought, to be cherished, to +be loved in default of a better, with the best faculties of brain +and soul, but still not that ultimate thing we wanted, that Good in +and of itself, as well as through and for us, Good by its own +nature apart from our interposition, self-moved, self-determined, +self-dependent, and in which alone our desires could finally +rest.—Don't you think that some such feeling may, perhaps, be +at the bottom of Bartlett's criticism of Art as unreal?"</p> + +<p>Bartlett laughed. "If so," he said, "it is quite unknown to +myself. For to tell the truth, I have not understood a word that +you have said."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "in that case, at any rate you can't disagree +with me. But what do the others think?" And I turned to Dennis and +Leslie, for Wilson and Parry did not seem to be attending. Leslie +assented with enthusiasm. But Dennis shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said, "what to think about all that. It seems +to me rather irrelevant to the work of Art as such."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," I said, "but surely not to the work of Art as Good? +Or do you not agree with me that the true Good must be such purely +of its own nature?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps so," he replied; "it wants thinking over. But in any +case I agree with you so far, that I should never place the Good in +Art."</p> + +<p>"In what then?"</p> + +<p>"I should be much more inclined to place it in Knowledge."</p> + +<p>"In Knowledge!" I repeated. "That seems to me very strange!"</p> + +<p>"But why strange?" he said. "Surely there is good authority for +the view. It was Aristotle's for example, and Spinoza's."</p> + +<p>"I know," I replied, "and I used to think it was also mine. But +of late I have come to realize more clearly what Knowledge is; and +now I see, or seem to see, that whatever its value may be, it is +something that falls very far short of Good."</p> + +<p>"Why," he said, "what is your idea of Knowledge?"</p> + +<p>"You had better ask Wilson," I replied, "it is he who has +instructed me."</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said, "I appeal to Wilson."</p> + +<p>And Wilson, nothing loth, enunciated his definition of +Knowledge.</p> + +<p>"Knowledge," he said, "is the description and summing up in +brief formulæ of the routine of our perceptions."</p> + +<p>"There!" I exclaimed. "No one, I suppose, would identify that +with Good?"</p> + +<p>"But"—objected Dennis—"in the first place, I don't +understand the definition; and, in the second place, I don't agree +with it."</p> + +<p>"As to understanding it," replied Wilson, "there need be no +difficulty there. You have only to seize clearly one or two main +positions. First, that Knowledge is of perceptions only, not of +things in themselves; secondly, that these perceptions occur in +fixed routines; thirdly ..."</p> + +<p>"But," interrupted Dennis, "what is a perception? I suppose it's +a perception of something?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "I don't know that it is."</p> + +<p>"What then? Simply a state in me?"</p> + +<p>"Very likely."</p> + +<p>"Then does nothing exist except my states?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing else exists primarily for you."</p> + +<p>"Then what about the world before I existed, and after I cease +to exist?"</p> + +<p>"You infer such a world from your states."</p> + +<p>"Then there is something besides my states—this world +which I infer; and that, I suppose, and not merely my perceptions, +is the reality of which I have knowledge?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly," he replied, "the fact is ..."</p> + +<p>"I don't think," I interrupted, "that we ought to plunge into a +discussion of the nature of Reality. It is Good with which we are +at present concerned."</p> + +<p>"But," said Dennis, "we wanted to find out the connection of +Knowledge with Good; and to do so we must first discover what +Knowledge is."</p> + +<p>"Well then," I said, "let us first take Wilson's account of +Knowledge, and see what he makes of that with regard to Good; and +then we will take yours, and see what we make of that. And if we +don't find that either satisfies the requirements of Good we will +leave Knowledge and go on to something else."</p> + +<p>"Very well," he replied, "I am content, so long as I get my +chance."</p> + +<p>"You shall have your chance. But first we will take Wilson. And +I dare say he will not keep us long. For you will hardly maintain, +I suppose," I continued, turning to him, "that Knowledge, as you +define it, could be identified with Good?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said; "to tell the truth, I don't much +believe in Good, in any absolute sense. But that Knowledge, as I +define it, is a good thing, I have no doubt whatever."</p> + +<p>"Neither have I," I replied; "but good, as it seems to me, +mainly as a means, in so far as it enables us to master +Nature."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "and what greater Good could there be?"</p> + +<p>"I don't dispute the greatness of such a Good. I merely wish to +point out that if we look at it so, it is in the mastery of Nature +that the Good in question consists, and not in the Knowledge +itself. Or should you say that there is Good in the scientific +activity itself, quite apart from any practical results to which it +may lead?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly," he replied, "and the former, in my opinion, is the +higher and more ideal Good."</p> + +<p>"This activity itself of inventing brief formulæ to resume +the routine of our perceptions?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, but what <i>is</i> the Good of it? That is what it is so +hard for a layman to get hold of. Does it consist in the discovery +of Reality? For that, I could understand, would be good."</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "for we do not profess to touch Reality. We deal +merely with our perceptions."</p> + +<p>"So that when, for example, you conceive such and such a perfect +fluid, or whatever you call it, and such and such motions in it, +you do not suppose this fluid to be real."</p> + +<p>"No. It is merely a conception by means of which we are enabled +to give an account of the order in which certain of our perceptions +occur. But it is very satisfactory to be able to give such an +account."</p> + +<p>"I suppose it must be," I said, "but once more, could you say +more precisely wherein the satisfaction consists? Is it, perhaps, +in the discovery of necessary connections?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "we don't admit necessity. We admit only an order +which is, as a matter of fact, regular."</p> + +<p>"You say, for example, that it so happens that all bodies do +move in relation to one another in the way summed up in the law of +gravitation; but that you see no reason why they should?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But ..." began Dennis, who had found difficulty all this time +in restraining himself.</p> + +<p>"One moment!" I pleaded, "let Wilson have his say." And turning +to him I continued: "If, then, the satisfaction to be derived from +scientific activity does not consist in the discovery of Reality, +nor yet in that of necessary connection, wherein should you say, +does it consist? Perhaps in the regulating of expectation?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p> + +<p>"I mean, that it is painful for us to live in a world in which +we don't know what to expect; it excites not only our fears and +apprehensions, but also a kind of intellectual disgust. And, +conversely, it is a relief and a pleasure to discover an order +among our experiences, not only because it enables us the better to +utilize them for our ends (for that belongs to the practical +results of science), but because in itself we prefer order to +disorder, even if no other advantage were to be got out of it."</p> + +<p>"I don't know that we do!" objected Ellis, "it depends on the +kind of order. An order of dull routine is far more intolerable +than a disorder of splendid possibilities! Ask the Oriental why he +objects to British rule! Simply because it is regular! He prefers +the chances of rapine, violent and picturesque, to the dreary +machine-like depredations of the tax-collector."</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said, "but there you take in a number of complex +factors. I was thinking merely of the Good to be got out of +scientific activity as such. And I think there is an intellectual +satisfaction in the discovery of order, even though it be +dissociated from necessity."</p> + +<p>"No doubt there is," said Wilson, "but I shouldn't say that is +the only reason for our delight in Knowledge. The fact is, +Knowledge is an extension of experience, and is good simply as +such. The sense of More and still More beyond what has yet been +discovered, of new facts, new successions, new combinations, of +ever fresh appeals to our interest, our wonder, our admiration, the +mere excitement of discovery for its own sake, quite apart from +anything else to which it may lead, a dash of adventure, too, a +heightening of life—that is what is the real spur to science +and, to my mind, its sufficient justification."</p> + +<p>"But," I objected, "that is rather an account of the general +process of Experience than of the special one of Knowledge. No +doubt there is an attraction in all activity—Ellis has +already expounded it; and all experience involves a kind of +Knowledge; but what we wanted to get at was the special attraction +of scientific activity; and that seems to be, so far as I can see, +simply the discovery of order."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "if you like—what then?"</p> + +<p>"Why, then," I said, "we can easily see the defect in this kind +of activity, when viewed from the standpoint of Good."</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, clearly, that that in which we discover the order may be +bad. There is a science of disease as well as of health; and an +activity concerned with the Bad could hardly be purely good, even +though it were a discovery of order in the Bad. Or do you think +that if all men were diseased, they would nevertheless be in +possession of the Good, if only they had perfect knowledge of the +laws of disease?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "of course not. We have to take into account, not +only the character of Knowledge, but the character of the object +known."</p> + +<p>"Quite so, that is my point. You agree then with me that +Knowledge may be in various ways good, but that in so far as it is, +or may be knowledge of Bad, it cannot be said by itself to +constitute the Good."</p> + +<p>"I think," he agreed, "that I might admit that."</p> + +<p>"Well, then," I said, "let us leave it there. And now, what has +Dennis to say?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he said, "you unmuzzle me at last. It has really been very +hard to sit by in silence and listen to these heresies without a +protest."</p> + +<p>"Heresies!" retorted Wilson, "if it comes to that, which of us +is the heretic?"</p> + +<p>"What," I asked, "is the point of disagreement?"</p> + +<p>"It's a fundamental one. On Wilson's view, Knowledge is merely +the discovery of order among our perceptions. If that were all, I +shouldn't value it much. But on my view, it is the discovery of +necessary connection; and in the necessity lies the +fascination."</p> + +<p>"But where," argued Wilson, "do you find your necessity? All +that is really given is succession. The necessity is merely what we +read into the facts."</p> + +<p>"Not at all! The necessity is 'given,' as you call it, as much +as anything else, if only you choose to look for it. The type of +all Knowledge is mathematical knowledge; and all mathematical +knowledge is necessary."</p> + +<p>"But it is all based on assumptions."</p> + +<p>"That may be; but granting the assumptions, it deduces from them +necessary consequences. And all true science is of that type. A law +of Nature is not a mere description of a routine; it's a statement +that, given such and such conditions, such and such results follow +of necessity."</p> + +<p>"Still, you admit that the conditions have to be given! +Everything is based ultimately on certain successions and +coincidences of which all that can be said is simply that they +exist, without any possibility of getting behind them."</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that," he said, "but at any rate it would be +the ideal of Knowledge to establish necessary connections +throughout; so that, given any one phenomenon of the universe, all +the rest would inevitably follow. And it is only in so far as it +progresses towards this consummation that Knowledge is Knowledge at +all. A routine simply given without internal coherence is to my +mind a contradiction in terms; either the routine is necessary, or +it's not a routine at all, but at best a mere appearance of a +routine."</p> + +<p>"I think," I interposed, "we must leave you and Wilson to fight +this out in private. At present, let us assume that your conception +of Knowledge is the true one, as we did with his, and examine it +from the point of view of the Good. Your conception, then, to begin +with, seems to me to be involved in the same defect we have already +noted—namely, that it may be knowledge of Bad just as much as +knowledge of Good. And I suppose you would hardly maintain, any +more than Wilson did, that the Good may consist in knowledge of +Bad?"</p> + +<p>"But," he objected, "I protest altogether against this notion +that there is Knowledge on the one hand and something of which +there is knowledge on the other. True Knowledge, if ever we could +attain to it, would be a unique kind of activity, in which there +would be no distinction, or at least no antagonism, between +thinking on the one hand and the thing thought on the other."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," I said, "that I quite understand. Have we in +fact any knowledge of that kind, that might serve as a kind of type +of what you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "I think we have. For example, if we are +dealing with pure number, as in arithmetic, we have an object which +is somehow native to our thought, commensurate with it, or however +you like to put it; and it is the same with other abstract notions, +such as substance and causation."</p> + +<p>"I see," I said. "And on the other hand, the element which is +alien to thought, and which is the cause of the impurity of most of +what we call knowledge, is the element of sense—the something +given, which thought cannot, as it were, digest, though it may +dress and serve it up in its own sauce?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "that is my idea."</p> + +<p>"So that knowledge, to be perfect, must not be of sense, but +only of pure thought, as Plato suggested long ago?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And such a knowledge, if we could attain it, you would call the +Good?"</p> + +<p>"I think so."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "in the first place, I have to point out that +such a Good (if it be one) implies an existence not merely better +than that of which we have an experience, but radically and +fundamentally different. For our whole life is bathed in sense. Not +only are we sunk in it up to the neck, but the greater part of the +time our heads are under too,—in fact most of us never get +them out at all; it is only a few philosophers every now and again +who emerge for a moment or two into sun and air, to breathe that +element of pure thought which is too fine even for them, except as +a rare indulgence. At other times, they too must be content with +the grosser atmosphere which is the common sustenance of common +men."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "but what of that? We have not been maintaining +that the Good is within easy reach of all."</p> + +<p>"No," cried Ellis. "But even if it were, and were such as you +describe it, very few people would care to put out their hands to +take it. I, at any rate, for my part can see hardly a vestige of +Good in the kind of activity I understand you to mean. It is as +though you should say, that Good consists in the perpetual +perception that 2 + 2 = 4."</p> + +<p>"But that is an absurd parody. For the point of knowledge would +be, that it would be a closed circle of necessary connections. One +would move in it, as in infinity, with a motion that is also rest, +central at once and peripheral, free and yet bound by law. That is +my ideal of a perfect activity!"</p> + +<p>"In form, perhaps," I said, "but surely not in content! For +what, in fact, in our experience comes nearest to what you +describe? I suppose the movement of a logic like Hegel's?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; only that, of course, is imperfect, full of lapses and +flaws!"</p> + +<p>"But even if it were perfect," cried Ellis, "would it be any the +better? Imagine being deprived of the whole content of +life—of nature, of history, of art, of religion, of +everything in which we are really interested; imagine being left to +turn for ever, like a squirrel in a cage, or rather like the idea +of a squirrel in the idea of a cage, round and round the wheel of +these hollow notions, without hands, without feet, without anything +anywhere by which we could lay hold of a something that is not +thought, a something solid, resistant, palpitating, 'luscious and +aplomb,' as Walt Whitman might say, a sense, a flesh, call it what +you will, the unintelligible, but still the indispensable, that +which, even if it be bad, we cannot afford to miss, and which, if +it be not the Good itself, the Good must somehow include!"</p> + +<p>Dennis appeared to be somewhat struck by this way of putting the +matter. "But," he urged, "my difficulty is that if you admit sense, +or anything analogous to it, anything at once directly presented +and also alien to thought, you get, as you said yourself, something +which is unintelligible; and a Good which is not intelligible will +be, so far, not good."</p> + +<p>"But," I said, "what do you mean by intelligible?"</p> + +<p>"I think," he replied, "that I mean two things, both of which +must be present. First, that there shall be a necessary connection +among the elements presented; and secondly, that the elements +themselves should be of such a kind as to be, as it were, +transparent to that which apprehends them, so that it asks no +questions as to what they are or whence they come, but accepts them +naturally and as a matter of course, with the same inevitability as +it accepts its own being."</p> + +<p>"And these conditions, you think, are fulfilled by the objects +of thought as you defined them?</p> + +<p>"I think so."</p> + +<p>"I am not so sure of that," I said, "it would require a long +discussion. But, anyhow, you also seemed to admit, when Ellis +pressed you, that thought of that kind could hardly be identified +absolutely with Good."</p> + +<p>"I admit," he replied, "that there are difficulties in that +view."</p> + +<p>"But at the same time the Good, whatever it be, ought to be +intelligible in the sense you have explained?"</p> + +<p>"I should say so."</p> + +<p>"And so should I. But now, the question is, can we not conceive +of any other kind of object, which might have, on the one hand, the +intelligibility you ascribe to pure ideas, and on the other, that +immediate something, 'luscious and aplomb,' to borrow Ellis's +quotation, which he desiderated as a constituent of the Good?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said, "perhaps we might. What is it you have +in your mind?"</p> + +<p>"Well," I replied, "let us recur for a moment to works of art. +In them we have, to begin with, directly presented elements other +than mere ideas."</p> + +<p>"No doubt."</p> + +<p>"And further, these elements, we agreed, have a necessary +connection one with the other."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but not logically necessary."</p> + +<p>"No doubt, but still a necessary connection. And it is the +necessity of the connection, surely, that is important; the +character of the necessity is a secondary consideration."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps."</p> + +<p>"One condition, then, of intelligibility is satisfied by a work +of art. But how is it with the other? How is it with the elements +themselves? Are they transparent, to use your phrase, to that which +apprehends them?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not, for they are mere sense—of all things the +most obscure and baffling."</p> + +<p>"And yet," I replied, "not mere sense, for they are sense made +beautiful; as beautiful, they are akin to us, and, so far, +intelligible."</p> + +<p>"You suggest, then, that Beauty is akin to something in us, in a +way analogous to that in which, according to me, ideas are akin to +thought?"</p> + +<p>"It seems so to me. In so far as a thing is beautiful it does +not, I think, demand explanation, but only in so far as it is +something else as well."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. But anyhow, inasmuch as a work of art is also sense, +so far at least it is not intelligible."</p> + +<p>"True; and here we come by a new path upon the defect which we +noticed before in works of art—that their Beauty, or +Goodness, is not essential to their whole nature, but is something +imposed, as it were, on an alien stuff. And it is this alien +element that we now pronounce to be unintelligible."</p> + +<p>"Yes; and so, as we agreed before, we cannot pronounce works of +art to be absolutely good."</p> + +<p>"No. But what are we to do then? Where are we to turn? Is there +nothing in our experience to suggest the kind of object we seem to +want?"</p> + +<p>No one answered. I looked round in vain for any help, and then, +in a kind of despair, moved by I know not what impulse, I made a +direct appeal to Audubon.</p> + +<p>"Come!" I cried, "you have said nothing for the last hour! I am +sure you must have something to suggest."</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "I haven't. Your whole way of dealing with these +things is a mystery to me. I can't conceive, for example, why you +have never once referred all through to what I should have thought +was the best Good we know—if, indeed, we know any Good at +all."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why," he said, "one's relations to persons. They're the only +things that I think really worth having—if anything were +worth having."</p> + +<p>A light suddenly broke on me, and I cried, "Yes! an idea!"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Ellis, "what is it, you man of forlorn hopes?"</p> + +<p>"Why," I said, "suppose the very object we are in search of +should be found just there?"</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Why, in persons!"</p> + +<p>"Persons!" he repeated. "But what persons? Any, every, all?"</p> + +<p>"Wait one moment," I cried, "and don't confuse me! Let me +approach the matter properly."</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said, "you shan't be hurried! You shall have +your chance."</p> + +<p>"Let us remind ourselves, then," I proceeded, "of the point we +had reached. The Good, we agreed, so far as we have been able to +form a conception of it, must be something immediately presented, +and presented in such a way, that it should be directly +intelligible—intelligible not only in the relations that +obtain between its elements, but also in the substance, so to +speak, of the elements themselves. Of such intelligibility we had a +type, as Dennis maintained, in the objects of pure thought, ideas +and their relations. But the Good, we held, could not consist in +these. It must be something, we felt, somehow analogous to sense, +and yet it could not be sense, for sense did not seem to be +intelligible. But now, when Audubon spoke, it occurred to me that +perhaps we might find in persons what we want And that is what I +should like to examine now."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Ellis, "proceed."</p> + +<p>"To begin with, then, a person, I suppose we shall agree, is not +sense, though he is manifested through sense."</p> + +<p>"What does that mean?" said Wilson.</p> + +<p>"It means only, that a person is not his body, although we know +him through his body."</p> + +<p>"If he isn't his body," said Wilson, "he is probably only a +function of it."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I said, "I know nothing about that. I only know that when +we talk of a person, we don't mean merely his body."</p> + +<p>"No," said Ellis, "but we certainly mean also his body. Heaven +save me from a mere naked soul, 'ganz ohne Körper, ganz +abstrakt,' as Heine says."</p> + +<p>"But, at any rate," I said, "let me ask you, for the moment, to +consider the soul apart from the body."</p> + +<p>"The soul," cried Wilson, "I thought we weren't to talk about +body and soul."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "I didn't intend to, but I seem to have been +driven into it unawares."</p> + +<p>"But what do you mean by the soul?"</p> + +<p>"I mean," I replied, "what I suppose to be the proper object of +psychology—for even people who object to the word 'soul' +don't mind talking (in Greek, of course) of the science of the +soul. Anyhow, what I mean is that which thinks and feels and +wills."</p> + +<p>"Well, but what about it?" said Ellis.</p> + +<p>"The first thing about it is that it is, as it seems to me, of +all things the most intelligible."</p> + +<p>"I should have said," Wilson objected, "that it was of all +things the least."</p> + +<p>"Yes; but we are probably thinking of different things. What you +have in your mind is the connection of this thing which you refuse +to call the soul, with the body, the genesis and relations of its +various faculties, the measurement of its response to stimuli, and +all the other points which are examined in books of psychology. All +that I agree is very unintelligible; I, at least, make no +profession of understanding it. But what I meant was, that looking +at persons as we know them in ordinary life, or as they are shown +to us in literature and art, they really are intelligible to us in +the same way that we are intelligible to ourselves."</p> + +<p>"And how is that?"</p> + +<p>"Why, through motives and passions. There is, I suppose, no +feeling or action of which human beings are capable, from the very +highest to the very lowest, which other human beings may not +sympathetically understand, through the mere fact that they have +the same nature. They will understand more or less according as +they have more or less sympathy and insight; but in any case they +are capable of understanding, and it is the business of literature +and art to make them understand."</p> + +<p>"That is surely a curious use of the word 'understand.'"</p> + +<p>"But it is the one, I think, which is important for us. At any +rate, what I mean is that the object presented is so akin, not +indeed (as in the case of ideas) merely to our thought, but to our +whole complex nature, that it does not demand explanation."</p> + +<p>"What!" cried Audubon. "Well, all I can say is that most of the +people I, at any rate, come across do most emphatically demand +explanation. I don't see why they're there, or what they're doing, +or what they're for. Their existence Is a perpetual problem to me! +And what's worse, probably my existence is the same to them!"</p> + +<p>"But," I said, "surely if you had leisure or inclination to +study them all sympathetically, you would end by understanding +them."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I should. At least I might in a sort of +pathological way, as one comes to understand a disease; but I +shouldn't understand why they exist. It seems to me, most people +aren't fit to exist; and I dare say they have the same opinion +about me."</p> + +<p>"But are there no people of whose existence you approve?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, a few: my friends."</p> + +<p>"Surely," cried Ellis, "you flatter us! How often have you said +that you don't see why we are this, that, or the other! How often +have you complained of our faces, our legs, our arms, in fact, our +whole physique, not to mention spiritual blemishes!"</p> + +<p>"Well," he replied, "I don't deny that it's a great grief to me +to be unable really and objectively to approve of any of my +friends. Still——"</p> + +<p>"Still," I interrupted, "you have given me the suggestion I +wanted. For the relation of affection, however imperfect it may be, +gives us at least something which perhaps we shall find comes +nearer to what we might conceive to be absolutely Good than +anything else we have yet hit upon."</p> + +<p>"How so?"</p> + +<p>"Well, to begin with, one's friend appears to one, does he not, +as an object good in its own nature, not merely by imposition of +our own ideal upon an alien stuff, as we said was the case with +works of art?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that!" said Audubon. "In my own case, at any +rate, I am sure that my friends never see me at all as I really am, +but simply read into me their own ideal. They have just as much +imposed upon me their own conception, as if I were the marble out +of which they had carded a statue."</p> + +<p>"You must allow us to be the judges of that," I replied.</p> + +<p>"Well, but," he said, "anyhow you can't deny that such illusions +are common. What lover ever saw his mistress as she really is?"</p> + +<p>"No," I said, "I don't deny that. But at the same time I should +affirm that the truer the love, the less the illusion. In what is +commonly called love, no doubt, the physical element is the +predominant, or even the only one present; and in that case there +may be illusion to an indefinite extent. But the love which is +based upon years of common experience, which has grown with the +growth of the whole person, in power and intelligence and insight, +which has survived countless disappointments and surmounted +countless obstacles, the love of husband and wife, the love, as we +began by saying, of friends—such love, as Browning says +boldly, 'is never blind.' And such love, I suppose you will admit, +does exist, however rarely?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose so."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, in the case of such a love, it is the object as it +really is, not as it has been falsely fashioned by the imagination, +that is directly apprehended as good. And you cannot fairly say +that its Good is merely the ideal of the lover transferred to the +person of the loved."</p> + +<p>"But," objected Leslie, "though that may be so, yet still the +Good, that Is the person, does inhere in an alien stuff—the +body."</p> + +<p>"But," I replied,"<i>is</i> the body alien? Is it not rather an +expression of the person? as essential, somehow or other, as the +soul?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly!" cried Ellis. "Give me the flesh, the flesh!</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'Not with my soul, Love!—bid +no soul like mine</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lap thee around nor leave the poor +sense room!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Take sense too—let me love +entire and whole—</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Not with my soul.'"</span><br> + + +<p>"I don't agree with the sentiment of that," said Leslie, "and +anyhow, I don't see how it bears on the question. For the point of +the poem is rather to emphasize than to deny the opposition between +body and soul."</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Ellis, "but also to suggest what you idealists +call the transcending of it."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that in the marriage relation, for example ..."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I mean that in that act the flesh, so to speak, is +annihilated at the very moment of its assertion, and what you get +is a feeling of total union with the person, body and soul at once, +or rather, neither one nor the other, but simply that which is in +and through both."</p> + +<p>"I should have thought," objected Leslie, "it was rather a case +of the soul being merged in the body."</p> + +<p>"That depends," replied Ellis.</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said, "it depends on many things! But what I was +thinking of was that, quite apart from that experience, and in the +moments of sober observation, one does feel, does one not, a +^correspondence between body and soul, as though the one were the +expression of the other?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," objected Audubon. "What I feel is much more +often a discrepancy."</p> + +<p>"But still," I urged, "even when there appears to be a +discrepancy to begin with, don't you think that in the course of +years the spirit does tend to stamp its own likeness on the flesh, +and especially on the features of the face?"</p> + +<p>"'For soul is form,'" quoted Leslie, "'and doth the body +make.'"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said, "and that verse, I believe, is not merely a +beautiful fancy of the poet's, but rather as the Greeks +maintained—and on such a point they were good judges—a +profound and significant truth. At any rate, I find it to be so in +the case of the people I care about—though there I know +Audubon will dissent. In them, every change of expression, every +tone of voice, every gesture has its significance; there is nothing +that is not expressive—not a curl of the hair, not a lift of +the eyebrows, not a trick of speech or gait. The body becomes, as +it were, transparent and pervious to the soul; and that +inexplicable element of sense, which baffles us everywhere else, +seems here at last to receive its explanation in presenting itself +as the perfect medium of spirit."</p> + +<p>"If you come to that," cried Ellis, "you might as well extend +your remarks to the clothes. For they, to a lover's eyes, are often +as expressive and adorable as the body itself."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "the clothes, too, are a sort of image of the +soul, 'an imitation of an imitation,' as Plato would say. But, +seriously, don't you agree with me that there is something in the +view which regards the body as the 'word made flesh,' a direct +expression of the person, not a mere stuff in which he +Inheres?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "there may be something in it. At any rate, I +understand what you mean."</p> + +<p>"And in so far as that is so," I continued, "the body, though it +be a thing of sense, would nevertheless be directly intelligible in +the same way as the soul?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, in a sort of way."</p> + +<p>"And so we should have In the person loved an object which, +though presented to sense, would be at once good and intelligible; +and our activity in relation to this object, the activity, that is, +of love, would come nearer than any other experience of ours to +what we might call a perfect Good?"</p> + +<p>"But," objected Leslie, "it is still far enough from being the +Good itself. For after all, say what you may about the body being +the medium of the soul, it is still body, still sense, and, like +other sensible things, subject to change and decay, and in the end +to death. And with the fate of the body, so far as we know, that of +the person is involved. So that this, too, like all other Goods of +sense, is precarious.'</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is," I said, "I cannot tell. But all that I mean to +maintain at present is that in the activity of love, as we have +analysed it, we have something which gives us, if it be only for a +moment, yet still in a real experience, an idea, at least, a +suggestion, to say no more, of what we might mean by a perfect +Good, even though we could not say that it be the Good itself."</p> + +<p>"But what, then, would you call the Good itself?"</p> + +<p>"A love, I suppose, which in the first place would be eternal, +and in the second all-comprehensive. For there is another defect in +love, as we know it, to which you did not refer, namely, that it is +a relation only to one or two individuals, while outside and beyond +it proceeds the main current of our lives, involving innumerable +relations of a very different kind from this."</p> + +<p>"Yes," cried Ellis, "and that is why this gospel of love, with +all its attractiveness, which I admit, seems to me, nevertheless, +so trivial and absurd. Just consider! Here is the great round world +with all that in it is, infinite in time, infinite in space, +infinite in complexity; here is the whole range of human relations, +to say nothing of those that are not human, of activities +innumerable in and upon nature and man himself, of inventions, +discoveries, institutions, laws, arts, sciences, religions; and the +meaning and purpose and end of all this we calmly assert to +be—what? A girl and a boy kissing on the village green!"</p> + +<p>"But," I protested, "who said anything about boys and girls and +kisses and village greens?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose that is love, of a sort?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of a sort, no doubt; but not a very good one."</p> + +<p>"You are thinking, then, of a special kind of love?"</p> + +<p>"I am thinking of the kind which I conceive to be the best."</p> + +<p>"And what is that?"</p> + +<p>"One, as I said just now, that should be eternal and +all-comprehensive."</p> + +<p>"And so, in the end, you have nothing better than an imaginary +heaven to land us in!"</p> + +<p>"I have no power, I fear, to land you there. But I believe there +is that dwelling within you which will not let you rest in anything +short."</p> + +<p>"Then I fear I shall never rest!"</p> + +<p>"That may be. But meantime all I want to do is to ascertain, if +we can, the meaning of your unrest. I have no interest in what you +call an imaginary heaven, except in so far as its conception is +necessary to enable us to interpret the world we know."</p> + +<p>"But how should it be necessary? I have never found it so."</p> + +<p>"It is necessary, I think, to explain our dissatisfaction. For +the Goods we actually realize always point away from themselves to +some other Good whose realization perhaps, as you say, for us is +impossible. But even if the Good were chimerical, we cannot deny +the passion that pursues it; for it is the same passion that urges +us to the pursuit of such Goods as we really can attain. And if we +want to understand the nature of that passion, we must understand +the nature of its Good, whether it be attainable or no. Only it is +for the sake of life here that we need that comprehension, not for +the sake of life somewhere else."</p> + +<p>"But do you reduce our passion for Good to this passion for +Love?"</p> + +<p>"I don't 'reduce' it; I interpret it so."</p> + +<p>"And so we come back to the girl and the boy and the village +green!"</p> + +<p>"No! we come back to the whole of life, of which that is only an +episode. Let me try to explain how the thing presents itself to +me."</p> + +<p>"By all means! That is what I want."</p> + +<p>"Very well; I will do my best. Let us look then at life just as +it is. Here we find ourselves involved with one another in the most +complex relations—economic, political, social, domestic, and +the rest; and about and in these relations centres the interest of +our life, whether it be pleasurable or painful, empty or full, or +whatever its character. Among these relations some few +perhaps—or, it may be, even none—realize for a longer +or shorter time, with more or less completeness, that ultimate +identity in diversity, that 'me in thee' which we call love; the +rest comprise various degrees of attraction and repulsion, hatred, +contempt, indifference, toleration, respect, sympathy, and so on; +and all together, always changing, dissolving, and combining anew, +weave about us, as they cross and intertwine, the shifting, +restless web we call life. Now these relations are an effect and +result of the pursuit of Good; but they are never the final goal of +that pursuit. The goal, I think, would be a perfect union of all +with all; and is not attained by anything that falls short of this, +whether the defect be in depth or In extent. And that is how it is +that love itself, even in its richer phases, and still more in +those which are merely light and sensual, though, as I think, +through it alone can we form our truest conception of Good, yet, as +we have it, never is the Good, even if it appear to be so for the +moment; for those who seek Good, I believe, will never feel that +they have found it merely in union with one other person. For what +love gains in intension it is apt to lose in extension; so that in +practice it may even come to frustrate the very end it seeks, +limiting instead of expanding, narrowing just in proportion as it +deepens, and, by causing the disruption of all other ties, +impoverishing the natures it should have enriched. Or don't you +think that this happens sometimes, for instance in married +life?"</p> + +<p>"I do indeed."</p> + +<p>"And, on the other hand," I continued, "it may very well be that +one who passes through life without attaining the fruition of love, +yet with his gaze always set upon it, in and through many other +connections, may yet come closer to the end of his seeking than one +who, having known love, has sunk to rest in it then and there, as +though he had come already to his journey's end, when really he has +only reached an inn upon the road. So that I am far from thinking, +as you pretended to suppose, that the boy and girl on the village +green realize then and there the consummation of the world."</p> + +<p>"Still," he objected, "I do not see, in the scheme you put +forward, what place is left for the common business of +life—for the things which really do, for the most part, +occupy and possess men's minds, and the more, in my opinion, the +greater their force and capacity."</p> + +<p>"You mean, I suppose, war and politics, and such things as +that?</p> + +<p>"Yes, and generally all that one calls business."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "what these things mean to those who pursue +them, I am not as competent as you to say. But surely, what they +are in essence is just, like most other activities, relations +between human beings—relations of command and obedience, of +respect, admiration, antagonism, comradeship, infinitely complex, +infinitely various, but still all of them strung, as it were, upon +a single thread of passion; all of them at tension to become +something else; all pointing to the consummation which it is the +nature of that which created them to seek, and all, in that sense, +paradoxical as it may sound, only means to love."</p> + +<p>"You don't repudiate such activities then?"</p> + +<p>"How should I? I repudiate nothing. I am not trying to judge, +but, if I could, to explain. It is the men of action, I suppose, +who have the greatest extension of life, and sometimes, no doubt, +the greatest intension too. But every man has to live his own way, +according to his opportunities and capacity. Only, as I think +myself, all are involved in the same scheme, and all are driven to +the same consummation."</p> + +<p>"A consummation in the clouds!"</p> + +<p>"I do not know about that; but at any rate, and this is the +important point, that which urges us to it is here and now. +Everything is rooted in it. Our pleasures and pains alike, our +longing and dissatisfaction, our restlessness never-to-be-quenched, +our counting as nothing what has been attained in the pressing on +to more, our lying down and rising up, our stumbling and +recovering, whether we fail, as we call it, or succeed, whether we +act or suffer, whether we hate or love, all that we are, all that +we hope to be springs from the passion for Good, and points, if we +are right in our analysis, to love as its end."</p> + +<p>Upon this Audubon broke out:—"That's all very well! But +the one crucial point you persistently evade. It may be quite true, +for aught I know, that the Good you describe is the Good we +seek—though I am not aware of seeking it myself. But, after +all, the real question is, Can we get it? If not, we are mere fools +to seek it."</p> + +<p>"So," I said, "you have brought me to bay at last! And, since +you challenge me, I am bound to admit that I don't know whether we +can get it or no."</p> + +<p>"Well then," he said, impatiently, "what is the good of all this +discussion?"</p> + +<p>"Clearly," I replied, "no good at all, if there be no Good, +which is the point to which you are always harking back. But you +have surely forgotten the basis of our whole argument?"</p> + +<p>"What basis?"</p> + +<p>"Why, that from the very beginning we have been trying to find +out, not so much what we know (for on that point I admit that we +know little enough), as what it is necessary for us to believe, if +we are to find significance in life."</p> + +<p>"But how can we believe what we don't know?"</p> + +<p>"Why," I replied, "we can surely adopt postulates, as indeed we +always do in practical life. Every man who is about to undertake +anything makes the assumption, in the first place, that it is worth +doing, and In the second place that it is possible to be done. He +may be wrong in both these assumptions, but without them he could +not move a step. And so with regard to the business of life, as a +whole, it is necessary to assume, if we are to make anything of it +at all, both that there is Good, and that we know something about +it; and also, I think, that it is somehow or other realizable; but +I do not know that any of these assumptions could be proved."</p> + +<p>"But what right have we, then, to make such assumptions?"</p> + +<p>"We have none at all, so far as knowledge is concerned. Indeed, +to my mind, it is necessary, if we are to be honest with ourselves, +that we should never forget that they are assumptions, so long as +they have not received definite proof. But still they are, I think, +as I said, assumptions we are bound to make, if we are to give any +meaning to life. We might perhaps call them 'postulates of the +will'; and our attitude, when we adopt them, that of faith."</p> + +<p>"Faith!" protested Wilson, "that is a dangerous word!"</p> + +<p>"It is," I agreed. "Yet I doubt whether we can dispense with it. +Only we must remember that to have 'faith' in a proposition is not +to affirm that it is true, but to live as we should do if it were. +It is, in fact, an attitude of the will, not of the understanding; +the attitude of the general going into battle, not of the +philosopher in his closet."</p> + +<p>"But," he objected, "where we do not know, the proper attitude +is suspense of mind."</p> + +<p>"In many matters, no doubt," I replied, "but surely not in those +with which we are dealing. For we must live or die; and if we are +to choose to do either, we must do so by virtue of some assumption +about the Good."</p> + +<p>"But why should we choose to do either? Why should not we simply +wait?"</p> + +<p>"But wait how? wait affirming or denying? active or passive? Is +it possible to wait without adopting an attitude? Is not waiting +itself an attitude, an acting on the assumption that it is good to +wait?"</p> + +<p>"But, at any rate, it does not involve assumptions as large as +those which you are trying to make us accept."</p> + +<p>"I am not trying to make you do anything; I am only trying to +discover what you make yourself do. And do you, as a matter of +fact, really dispute the main conclusions to which we have come, or +rather, if you will accept my phrase, the main 'postulates of the +will' which we have elicited?"</p> + +<p>"What are they? Let me have them again."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "here they are. First, that Good has some +meaning."</p> + +<p>"Agreed!"</p> + +<p>"Second, that we know something about that meaning."</p> + +<p>"Doubtful!" said Dennis. "But it will be no use now to resume +that controversy."</p> + +<p>"No," I replied, "only I thought I had shown that if we know +nothing about it, then, for us, it has no meaning; and so our first +assumption is also destroyed, and with it all significance in +life."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "go on. We can't go over all that again."</p> + +<p>"Third," I continued, "that among our experiences the one which +comes nearest to Good is that which we called love."</p> + +<p>"Possible!" said Dennis, "but a very tentative +approximation."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," I agreed, "and subject to constant revision."</p> + +<p>"And after that?"</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "now comes the point Audubon raised. Is it +necessary to include also the postulate that Good can be +realized?"</p> + +<p>"But surely," objected Wilson, "here at least there is no room +for what you call faith. For whether or no the Good can be realized +is a question of knowledge."</p> + +<p>"No doubt," I replied, "and so are all questions—if only +we could know. But I was assuming that this is one of the things we +do not know."</p> + +<p>"But," he said, "it is one we are always coming to know. Every +year we are learning more and more about the course and destiny of +mankind."</p> + +<p>"Should you say, then," I asked, "that we are nearer to knowing +whether or no the soul is immortal?"</p> + +<p>He looked at me in sheer amazement; and then, "What a question!" +he cried. "I should say that we have long known that it isn't"</p> + +<p>"Then," I said, "if so, we know that the Good cannot be +realized."</p> + +<p>"What!" he exclaimed. "I had not understood that your conception +of the Good involved the idea of personal immortality."</p> + +<p>"I am almost afraid it does," I replied, "but I am not quite +sure. We have already touched upon the point, if you remember, when +we were considering whether we must regard the Good as realizable +in ourselves, or only in some generation of people to come. And we +thought then that it must somehow be realizable in us."</p> + +<p>"But we did not see at the time what that would involve, though +I was afraid all along of something of the kind."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "for fear you should think you have been +cheated, we will reconsider the point; and first, if you like, we +will suppose that we mean by the Good of some future generation, +still retaining for Good the signification we gave to it. The +question then of whether or no the Good can be realized, will be +the question whether or no it is possible that at some future time +all individuals should be knit together in that ultimate relation +which we called love."</p> + +<p>"But," cried Leslie, "the love was to be eternal! So that +<i>their</i> souls at least would have to be immortal; and if +theirs, why not ours?"</p> + +<p>I looked at Wilson; and "Well," I said, "what are we to +say?"</p> + +<p>"For my part," he replied, "I have nothing to say. I consider +the whole idea of immortality illegitimate."</p> + +<p>"Yet on that," I said, "hangs the eternal nature of our Good. +But may we retain, perhaps, the all-comprehensiveness?"</p> + +<p>"How could we!" cried Leslie, "for it is only the individuals +who happened to be alive who could be comprehended so long as they +were alive."</p> + +<p>"Another glory shorn from our Good!" I said. "Still, let us hold +fast to what we may! Shall we say that if the Good is to be +realized the individuals then alive, so long as they are alive, +will be bound together in this relation?"</p> + +<p>"You can say that if you like," said Wilson, "and something of +that kind I suppose one would envisage as the end. Only I'm not +sure that I very well know what you mean by love."</p> + +<p>"Alas!" I cried, "is even that to go? Is nothing at all to be +left of my poor conception?"</p> + +<p>"You, can say if you like," he replied, "and I suppose it comes +to much the same thing, that all individuals will be related in a +perfectly harmonious way."</p> + +<p>"In other words," cried Ellis, "that you will have a society +perfectly definite, heterogeneous, and co-ordinate! 'There's glory +for you!' as Humpty Dumpty said."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "this is something very different from what we +defined to be Good! But this, at any rate, you think, on grounds of +positive science, that it might be possible to realize?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Wilson; "or if not that, I think at any rate that +science may ultimately be in a position to decide whether or no it +can be realized."</p> + +<p>"But," I said, "do you not think the same about personal +immortality?"</p> + +<p>"To be honest," he replied, "I do not think that the question of +personal immortality is one which science ought even to +entertain."</p> + +<p>"But," I urged, "I thought science was beginning to entertain +it. Does not the 'Society for Psychical Research' deal with such +questions?"</p> + +<p>"'The Society for Psychical Research!'" he exclaimed. "I do not +call that science."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "at any rate there are men of a scientific turn +of mind connected with it" And I mentioned the names of one or two, +whereupon Wilson broke out into indignation, declaring with much +vehemence that the gentlemen in question were bringing discredit +both upon themselves and the University to which they belonged; and +then followed a discussion upon the proper objects and methods of +science, which I do not exactly recall. Only I remember that Wilson +took up a position which led Ellis, with some justice as I thought, +to declare that science appeared to be developing all the vices of +theology without any of its virtues—the dogmatism, the "index +expurgatorius," and the whole machinery for suppressing +speculation, without any of the capacity to impose upon the +conscience a clear and well-defined scheme of life. This debate, +however, was carried on in a tone too polemic to elicit any really +fruitful result; and as soon as I was able I endeavoured to steer +the conversation back into the smoother waters from which it had +been driven.</p> + +<p>"Let us admit," I said, "if you like, for the sake of argument, +that on the question of the immortality of the soul we do not and +cannot know anything at all."</p> + +<p>"But," objected Wilson, "I maintain that we do know that there +is no foundation at all for the idea. It is a mere reflection of +our hopes and fears, or of those of our ancestors."</p> + +<p>"But," I said, "even if it be, that does not prove that it is +not true; it merely shows that we have no sufficient reason for +thinking it to be true."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "put it so, if you like; that is enough to +relegate the notion to the limbo of centaurs and chimæras. +What we have no reason to suppose to be true, we have no reason to +concern ourselves with."</p> + +<p>"Pardon me," I replied, "but I think we have, if the idea is one +that interests us, as Is the case with what we are discussing. We +may not know whether or no it is true, but we cannot help +profoundly caring."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I may be peculiarly constituted, but, +honestly, I do not myself care in the least"</p> + +<p>"But," I said, "perhaps you ought to, if you care about the +Good; and that is really the question I want to come back to. What +is the minimum we must believe if we are to make life significant? +Is it sufficient to believe in what you call the 'progress of the +race'? Or must we also believe in the progress of the individual, +involving, as it does, personal immortality?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Wilson, "I don't profess to take lofty views of +life—that I leave to the philosophers. But I must say it +seems to me to be a finer thing to work for a future in which one +knows one will not participate oneself than for one in which one's +personal happiness is involved. I have always sympathized with +Comte, pedant as he was, in the remark he made when he was +dying."</p> + +<p>"Which one?" interrupted Ellis. "'Quelle perte +irréparable?' That always struck me as the most humorous +thing ever said."</p> + +<p>"No," said Wilson, gravely, "but when he said that the prospect +of death would be to him infinitely less sublime, if it did not +involve his own extinction; the notion being, I suppose, that death +is the triumphant affirmation of the supremacy of the race over the +individual. And that, I think myself, is the sound and healthy and +manly view."</p> + +<p>"My dear Wilson," cried Ellis, "you talk of lofty views; but +this is a pinnacle of loftiness to which I, for one, could never +aspire. Positively, to rejoice in the extinction of the individual +with his faculties undeveloped, his opportunities unrealized, his +ambitions unfulfilled—why it's sublime! its +Kiplingese—there's no other word for it! Shake hands, Wilson! +you're a hero."</p> + +<p>"Really," said Wilson, rather impatiently, "I see nothing +strained or high-faluting in the view. And as to what you say about +faculties undeveloped and the rest, that seems to me unreal and +exaggerated! Most men have a good enough time, and get pretty much +what they deserve. A healthy, normal man is ready to die—he +has done what he had it in him to do, and passed on his work to the +next generation."</p> + +<p>"I have often wondered," said Ellis, meditatively, "what +'normal' means. Does it mean one in a million, should you say? Or +perhaps that is too large a proportion? Some people say, do they +not, that there never was a normal man?"</p> + +<p>"By 'normal,'" retorted Wilson, doggedly, "I mean average, and I +include every one except a few decadents and faddists."</p> + +<p>At this point, seeing that we were threatened with another +digression, I thought it best to intervene again.</p> + +<p>"We are diverging," I said, "a little from the issue. Wilson's +position, as I understand him, is that the prospect of the future +Good of the race is sufficient to give significance to the life of +the individual, even though he realize no Good for himself."</p> + +<p>"No," replied Wilson, "I don't say that; for I think he always +does realize sufficient Good for himself."</p> + +<p>"But is it because of that Good which he realizes for himself +that his life has significance? Or because of the future Good of +the race?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know; both, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"You do not think then that the future Good of the race is +sufficient, by itself, to give significance to the lives of +individuals who are never to partake in it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't like that way of putting the question. What I believe +is, that in realizing his own Good a man is also contributing to +that of the race. There is no such antagonism between the two ends +as you seem to suggest."</p> + +<p>"I don't say that there is an antagonism; but I do insist that +there is a distinction. And I cannot help feeling—and this is +where we seem to disagree—that in estimating the Good of +individual lives we must have regard to that which they realize in +and for themselves, not merely to that which they may be +contributing to produce some day in somebody else."</p> + +<p>"These 'somebody elses,'" cried Ellis, "being after all nothing +but other individuals like themselves! so that you get an infinite +series of people doing Good to one another, and none of them +getting any Good for themselves, like the: islanders who lived by +taking in one another's washing!"</p> + +<p>"Well, but," said Wilson, "supposing I consent, for the sake of +argument, to let you estimate the worth of life by the Good which +individuals realize in themselves. What follows then?"</p> + +<p>"Why, then" I said, "it would, I think, be very hard to maintain +that we do most of us realize Good enough to make it seem worth +while to have lived at all, if indeed we are simply extinguished at +death. At any rate, if we set aside an exceptional few, and look +frankly at the mass of men and women, judging them not as means to +something else, but as ends in themselves, with reference not to +happiness, or content, or acquiescence, or indifference, but simply +to Good—if we look at them so, can we honestly say that there +is enough significance in their lives to justify the labour and +expense of producing and maintaining them?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he replied, "they probably think themselves that +there is."</p> + +<p>"Probably," I rejoined, "they do not think about it at all. But +what I should like to know is, what do you think?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see," he objected, "how I can have any opinion; the +problem is too vast and indeterminate."</p> + +<p>"Is it?" cried Audubon, intervening in his curious abrupt way, +and with more than his usual energy of protest "Well, indeterminate +or no, it's the one point on which I have no doubt. Most people are +only fit to have their necks broken, and it would be the kindest +thing for them if some one would do it."</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "at any rate that is a vigorous opinion. Does +anyone else share it?"</p> + +<p>"I do," said Leslie, "on the whole. Most men, if they are not +actually bad, are at best indifferent—'sacs merely, floating +with open mouths for food to slip in.'"</p> + +<p>"Upon my word!" cried Bartlett, "it's wonderful how much you +know about them, considering how very little you've seen of +them!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I said, turning to him, "then you do not agree with this +estimate?"</p> + +<p>"I!" he said. "Oh, no! I am not a superior person! Most men, I +suppose, are as good as we are, and probably a great deal +better!"</p> + +<p>"They might well be that," I replied, "without being +particularly good. But perhaps, as you seem to suggest, it might be +better to confine ourselves to our own experience and consider +whether for ourselves, so far as we can see, we should think life +much worth having, supposing death to be the end of it all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, as to that, of course I should, for my part," cried Ellis, +"and so, I hope, should we all. In fact, I consider it rather +monstrous to ask the question at all."</p> + +<p>"My dear Ellis," I protested, "you are really the most +inconsistent of men! Not a minute ago you were laughing at Wilson +for his acquiescence in the extinction of the individual 'with his +opportunities unrealized, his faculties undeveloped,' and all the +rest of it. And now you appear to be adopting precisely the same +attitude yourself."</p> + +<p>"I can't help it," he replied; "consistent or no, life's good +enough for me. And so it should be for you, you ungrateful +ruffian!"</p> + +<p>"I am not so sure," I said, "that it should be; not so sure as I +was a few years ago."</p> + +<p>"Why, you Methuselah, what has age got to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Just this," I replied, "that up to a certain time of life all +the Good that we get we take to be prophetic of more Good to come. +What we actually realize we value less for itself than for +something else which it promises. The moments of good experience we +expand till they fill all infinity; the intervening tracts of +indifferent or bad we simply forget or ignore. Life is good, we +say, because the universe is good; and this goodness we expect to +grasp in its entirety, not to-day, perhaps, nor to-morrow, but at +least the day after. And so, like the proverbial ass, we are lured +on by a wisp of hay. But being, at bottom, intelligent brutes, we +begin, in time, to reflect; we put back our ears, and plant our +feet stiff and rigid where we stand, and refuse to budge an inch +till we have some further information as to the meaning of the +journey into which we are being enticed. That, at least, is the +point that has been reached by this ass who is now addressing you. +I want to know something more about that bundle of hay; and that is +why I am interested in the question of personal immortality."</p> + +<p>"Which means—to drop the metaphor——?"</p> + +<p>"Which means, that I have come to realize that I am not likely +to get more Good out of life than I have already had, and that I +may very likely get less; or if more in some respects, then less in +others. For, in the first place, the world, as it seems, is just as +much bad as good, and whether Good or Bad predominate I cannot say. +And in the second place, even of what Good there is—and I do +not under-estimate its worth—it is but an infinitesimal +portion that I am capable of realizing, so limited am I by +temperament and circumstance, so bound by the errors and illusions +of the past, so hampered by the disabilities crowding in from the +future. For though, as I think, the older I get the more clearly I +recognize what is good, and the more I learn to value and to +perceive it, yet at the same time the less do I become capable of +making it my own, and must in the nature of things become less and +less so, in so far at least as Goods other than those of the +intellect are concerned. And this is a position which seems to be +involved in the mere fact of age and death frankly seen from the +naturalistic point of view; and so it has always been felt and +expressed from the time of the Greeks onwards, and not least +effectively, perhaps, by Browning in his 'Cleon'—you remember +the passage:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'... Every day my sense of +joy</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Grows more acute, my soul +(intensified</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By power and insight) more +enlarged, more keen;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While every day my hairs fall more +and more,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My hand shakes, and the heavy years +increase—</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The horror quickening still from +year to year,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The consummation coming past +escape,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I shall know most, and yet +least enjoy—</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When all my works wherein I prove +my worth,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Being present still to mock me in +men's mouths,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alive still in the phrase of such +as thou,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I, I the feeling, thinking, acting +man,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The man who loved his life so +over-much,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall sleep in my urn.'</span><br> + + +<p>"You see the point; indeed, it is so familiar, I have laboured +it, perhaps, too much. But the result seems to be, that while it is +natural enough that in youth, for those who are capable of Good, +life should seem to be pre-eminently worth the having, yet the last +judgment of age, for those who believe that death is the end, will +be a doubt, and perhaps more than a doubt, even in the case of +those most favoured by fortune, whether after all a life has been +worth the trouble of living which has unfolded such infinite +promise only to bury it fruitless in the grave."</p> + +<p>"I think that's rather a morbid view!" said Parry.</p> + +<p>"I do not know," I said, "whether it is morbid, nor do I very +much care; the question is, whether it is reasonable, and whether +it is not the position naturally and perhaps inevitably adopted not +by the worst but by the best men among those who have abandoned the +belief in personal immortality."</p> + +<p>"That," interposed Wilson, "is surely not the case. One knows of +people who, though they have no belief in survival after death, yet +maintain a perfectly cheerful and healthy attitude towards life. +Harriet Martineau is one that occurs to me. To her, you may +remember, life appeared not less but more worth living when she had +become convinced of her own annihilation at death; and she awaited +with perfect equanimity and calm its imminent approach, not as a +deliverance from a condition which was daily becoming more +intolerable, but as a fitting crown and consummation to a career of +untiring and fruitful activity."</p> + +<p>"That," exclaimed Parry with enthusiasm, "is what I call +magnanimous!"</p> + +<p>"I don't!" retorted Leslie, "I call it simply stupid and +unimaginative."</p> + +<p>"Call it what you like," said Wilson; "anyhow it is a position +which can be and has been adopted."</p> + +<p>"Yes," I agreed, "but one which, I think, a clearer analysis of +the facts, a franker survey and a more penetrating insight, would +make it increasingly difficult to sustain. And after all, an +estimate which is to endure must be not only magnanimous but +reasonable."</p> + +<p>"But to her, and to others like her, it did and does appear to +be reasonable. And you ought to admit, I think, that there are +cases in which life is well worth living quite apart from the +hypothesis of personal immortality."</p> + +<p>"I am ready to admit," I replied, "that there are people to whom +it seems to be so, but I doubt whether they are very numerous, +among those, I mean, who have reflected on the subject, and whose +opinions alone we need consider. I, at any rate, have commonly +found in talking to people about death—supposing, which is +unusual, that they are willing to talk about it at all—that +they adopt one of two views, either of which presupposes the +worthlessness of life, if life, as we know it, be indeed all"</p> + +<p>"What views do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why, either they believe that death means annihilation, and +rejoice in the prospect as a deliverance from an intolerable evil; +or they hold that there is a life beyond, and that they will find +there the reason and justification for existence which they have +never been able to discover here."</p> + +<p>"You forget, surely," said Wilson, "a third point of view, which +I should have thought was as common as either of the +others,—that of those who believe in a life after death, but +look forward to it with inexpressible fear of the possible evils +which it may contain."</p> + +<p>"True," I said, "but such fear, I suppose, is a reflex of actual +experience, and implies, does it not, a vivid sense of the evils of +existence as we know it? So that these people, too, I should +maintain, have not really found life satisfactory, or they would +look forward with hope rather than fear to the possibility of Its +continuance."</p> + +<p>"But in their case, at any rate, the hypothesis of personal +immortality is an aggravation, not a remedy, of the evil."</p> + +<p>"No doubt; but I have been assuming throughout that the +hypothesis involves the realization of that Good which, without it, +we recognize to be unattainable; and it is only in that sense, and +from that point of view, that I have introduced it."</p> + +<p>"Well," he persisted, "considering how improbable the hypothesis +is, I should be very loth to admit that it is one which it is +practically necessary to adopt. And I still maintain that most +people do not require it—ordinary simple people, I mean, who +do their work and make no fuss about it."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not," I replied, "for it is characteristic of such +people to make no hypothesis at all, but to adopt for the moment +any view suggested by the state of their spirits. But I believe +that if ever you can get a man, no matter how plain and +unsophisticated, to reflect fairly upon his own experience, and to +look impartially at the facts all round, abstracting from all bias +of habit and mood and prejudice, he will admit that if it be true +that the individual is extinguished at death, together with all his +possibilities of realizing Good, then life cannot rationally be +judged to be worth the living, however imperatively we may be +compelled to continue to live it."</p> + +<p>"But it Is just that imperative compulsion," cried Parry, "on +which I rely! That seems to me the justification of life—the +fact that we are forced to live! I trust that instinct more than +all the inclination in the world!"</p> + +<p>"But," I said, "when you say that you trust the instinct, do you +mean that you judge it to be good?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose so."</p> + +<p>"Then in trusting the instinct you are really trusting your +reason, which judges the instinct to be good, or, if not your +reason, the faculty, whatever it be, which judges of Good. And the +only difference between us is, that I try to ascertain what we do +really believe to be good, whereas you accept and cling to a +particular judgment about Good, without any attempt to test it and +harmonize it with others."</p> + +<p>"But you admit yourself that all your results are tentative and +problematical in the extreme."</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"And yet these results you venture to set in opposition to a +simple, profound, imperative cry of Nature!"</p> + +<p>"Why should I not? For I have no right to suppose that nature is +good, except in so far as I can reasonably judge her to be so."</p> + +<p>"That seems to me a sort of blasphemy."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid," I said, "if I must choose, I would rather +blaspheme Nature than Reason. But I hope I am not blaspheming +either. For it may be that what you call Nature has provided for +the realization of Good. That, at any rate, is the hypothesis I was +suggesting; and it is you who appear to be setting it aside."</p> + +<p>"But," objected Wilson, "you talk of this hypothesis as if it +were something one could really entertain! To me it is not a +hypothesis at all; it's simply an inconceivability."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that it is self-contradictory?"</p> + +<p>"No, not exactly that. Simply that it is unimaginable."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" I said; "but what one can imagine depends on the quality +of one's imagination! To me, for example, the immortality of the +soul does not seem any harder to imagine than birth and life, and +death and consciousness. It's all such a mystery together, if once +one begins trying to realize it."</p> + +<p>"No one," interposed Ellis, "has put that point better than Walt +Whitman."</p> + +<p>"True," I replied, "and that reminds me that I think you hardly +did justice to his view when you were quoting him a little while +ago. It is true that he does, as you said, accept all facts, good +and bad, and even appears at times to obliterate the distinction +between them. But also, whether consistently or no, he regards them +all as phases of a process, good only because of what they promise +to be. So that his view really requires a belief in immortality to +justify it; and to him such belief is as natural and simple as to +Wilson it is absurd. There is a passage somewhere, I +remember—perhaps you can quote it—it begins, 'Is it +wonderful that I should be immortal?'"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I remember":</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Is it wonderful that I should be +immortal? as every one is immortal;</span><br> + <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"I know it is wonderful—but +my eyesight is equally wonderful, and how I was conceived in my +mother's womb is equally wonderful,</span><br> + <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And passed from a babe, in the +creeping trance of a couple of summers and winters to articulate +and walk. All this is equally wonderful.</span><br> + <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that my soul embraces you +this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other, +and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as +wonderful.</span><br> + <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that I can think such +thoughts as these is just as wonderful,</span><br> + <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that I can remind you, and +you think them and know them to be true, is just as +wonderful.</span><br> + <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that the moon spins round the +earth, and on with the earth, is equally wonderful,</span><br> + <span style="margin-left: 2em;">"And that they balance themselves +with the sun and stars is equally wonderful."</span><br> + + +<p>"That," I said, "is the passage I meant, and it shows that +Whitman, at any rate, did not share Wilson's feeling that the +immortality of the soul is unimaginable."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Wilson, "imaginable or no, we have no reason to +believe it to be true."</p> + +<p>"No reason, indeed," I agreed, "so far as demonstration is +concerned, though equally, as I think, no reason to deny it. But +the point I raised was, whether, if we are to take a positive view +of life and hold that it somehow has a good significance, we are +not bound to adopt this, hypothesis of immortality—to +believe, that is, that, somehow or other, there awaits us a state +of being in which all souls shall be bound together in that +harmonious and perfect relation of which we have a type and +foretaste in what we call love. For, if it be true that perfect +Good does involve some such relation, and yet that it is one +unattainable under the conditions of our present life, then we must +say either that such Good is unattainable—and in that case +why should we idly pursue it?—or that we believe we shall +attain it under some other conditions of existence. And according +as we adopt one or the other position—so it seems to +me—our attitude towards life will be one of affirmation or of +negation."</p> + +<p>"But," he objected, "even if you were right in your conception +of Good, and even if it be true that Good in its perfection is +unattainable, yet we might still choose to get at least what Good +we can—and some Good you admit we can get—and might +find in that pursuit a sufficient justification for life."</p> + +<p>"We might, indeed," I admitted, "but also we might very well +find, that the Good we can attain is so small, and the Evil so +immensely preponderant, that we ought to labour rather to bring to +an end an existence so pitiful than to perpetuate it indefinitely +in the persons of our luckless descendants."</p> + +<p>"That, thank heaven," said Parry, "is not the view which is +taken by the Western world."</p> + +<p>"The West" I replied, "has not yet learned to reflect. Its +activity is the slave of instinct, blind and irresponsible."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he assented eagerly, "and that is its saving grace! This +instinct, which you call blind, is health and sanity and +vigour."</p> + +<p>"I know," I said, "that you think so, and so does Mr. Kipling, +and all the train of violent and bloody bards who follow the camp +of the modern army of progress. I have no quarrel with you or with +them; you may very well be right in your somewhat savage worship of +activity. I am only trying to ascertain the conditions of your +being right, and I seem to find it in personal immortality."</p> + +<p>"No," he persisted. "We are right without condition, right +absolutely and beyond all argument. Pursue Good is the one ultimate +law; whether or no it can be attained is a minor matter; and if to +inquire into the conditions of its attainment is only to weaken us +in the pursuit, then I say the inquiry is wrong, and ought to be +discouraged."</p> + +<p>"Well" I said, "I will not dispute with you further. Whether you +are right or wrong I cannot but admire your strenuous belief in +Good and in our obligation to pursue it. And that, after all, was +my main point. On the other question about what Good is and whether +it is attainable, I could hardly wish to make converts, so +conscious am I that I have infinitely more to learn than to teach. +Only, that there is really something to learn, of that I am +profoundly convinced. Perhaps even Audubon will agree with me +there?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I do," he replied, "and anyhow it doesn't +seem to me to make much difference. Whatever we may think about +Good, that doesn't affect the nature of Reality—and Reality, +I believe, is bad!"</p> + +<p>"Ah, Reality!" I rejoined, "but what is Reality? Is it just what +we see and touch and handle?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose so."</p> + +<p>"That is a sober view, and one which I have constantly tried to +impress upon myself. Sometimes, even, I think I have succeeded, +under the combined stress of logic and experience. But there comes +an unguarded moment, some evening in summer, like this, when I am +walking, perhaps, alone in a solitary wood, or in a meadow beside a +quiet stream; and suddenly all my work is undone, and I am +overwhelmed by a direct apprehension, or what seems at least for +the moment to be such, that everything I hear and see and touch is +mere illusion after all, and behind it lies the true Reality, if +only I could find the way to seize it. It is due, I suppose, to +some native and ineradicable strain of mysticism; or perhaps, as I +sometimes think, to the memory of a strange experience which I once +underwent and have never been able to forget"</p> + +<p>"What was that?"</p> + +<p>"It will not be very easy, I fear, to describe, but perhaps it +may be worth while to make the attempt, for it bears, more or less, +on the subject of our conversation. Once then, you must know, and +once only, a good many years ago now, I was put under the influence +of anæsthetics; and during the time I was unconscious, or +rather, conscious in a new way, I had a very curious dream, if +dream it were, which has never ceased to affect my thoughts and my +life. It was as follows:</p> + +<p>"As soon as I lost consciousness of the world without, my soul, +I thought, which seemed at first to be diffused throughout my body, +began to draw itself upward, beginning at the feet. It passed +through the veins of the legs and belly to the heart, which was +beating like a thousand drums, and thence by the aorta and the +carotids to the brain, whence it emerged by the fissures of the +skull into the outer air. No sooner was it free (though still +attached, as I felt with some uneasiness, by a thin elastic cord to +the pia mater) than it gathered itself together (into what form I +could not say), and with incredible speed shot upwards, till it +reached what seemed to be the floor of heaven. Through this it +passed, I know not how, and found itself all at once in a new +world.</p> + +<p>"What this world was like I must now endeavour to explain, +difficult though it be to find suitable language; for the things +here, of which our words are symbols, are themselves only symbols +of the things there. The feeling I had, however, (for I was now +identified with my soul, and had forgotten all about my +body)—the feeling I had was that of sitting alone beside a +river. What kind of country it was I can hardly describe, for there +was nowhere any definite colour or form, only a suggestion, such as +I have seen in drawings, of vast infinite tracts of empty space. I +could not even say there was light or darkness, for my organ of +perception did not seem to be the eye; only I was aware of an +emotional effect similar to that of twilight, cold, grey, and +formless as night itself. The silence was absolute, if indeed +silence it were, for it was not by the ear that I perceived either +sound or its absence; but something there was, analogous to silence +in its effect And in the midst of the silence and the twilight +(since so I must call them) flowed the river, or what seemed such, +distinguishable, as I thought at first, rather by the fact that it +flowed, than by any peculiarity of substance, colour, or form, from +the stretches of empty space that formed its banks. But presently, +as I looked more closely, I saw, rising from its surface, dipping, +rising, and dipping again, in a regular rhythm, without change or +pause, what I can only compare to a shoal of flying fish. Not that +they looked like fish, or indeed like anything I had ever seen, but +that was the image suggested by their motion. As soon as I saw them +I knew what they were: they were souls; and the river down which +they passed was the river of Time; and their dipping in and out +again was the sequence of their lives and deaths.</p> + +<p>"All this did not surprise me at all. Rather, I felt it was +something I had always known, yet something inexpressibly flat and +disillusioning. 'Of course!' I said to myself, or thought, or +whatever may have been my mode of cognition—'Of course! That +is it, and that is all! Souls are indeed immortal—why should +we ever have imagined otherwise? They are immortal, and what of it? +I see the death-side now as I saw the life-side then; and one has +as little meaning as the other. As it has been, so it will be, now, +henceforth, and for ever, in and out, in and out, without pause or +stint, futile, trivial, silly, stale, tedious, monotonous, and +vain!' The long pre-occupation of men with religion, philosophy, +and art, seemed to me now as incomprehensible as it was ridiculous. +There was nothing after all to be interested about! There was +simply this! The dreariness of my mood was indescribable, and +corresponded so closely to the scene before me that I found myself +wondering which was effect, which cause. The silence, the tracts of +unformed space, the unsubstantial river, the ceaseless vibration +along its surface of infinite moving points, all this was a reflex +of my thoughts and they of it. My misery was Intolerable; to escape +became my only object; and with this in view I rose and began to +move, I knew not whither, along the silent shore.</p> + +<p>"As I went, I presently became aware of what looked like high +towers standing along the margin of the stream. I say they looked +like towers, but I should rather have said they symbolized them; +for they had no specific shape, round or square, nor any definite +substance or dimensions. They suggested rather, if I may say so, +the idea of verticality; and otherwise were as blank and void of +form or colour as everything else in this strange land. I made my +way towards them along the bank; and when I had come close under +the first, I saw that there was a door in it, and written over the +door, in a language I cannot now recall, but which then I knew that +I had always known, an inscription whose sense was:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>I am the Eye; come into me and +see</i>.'</span><br> + + +<p>"Miserable as I was, it was impossible that I should hesitate; I +did not know, it is true, what might await me within, but it could +not be worse and might well be better than my present plight. The +door was open; I stepped in; and no sooner had I crossed the +threshold than I was aware of an experience more extraordinary and +delightful than it had ever been my lot to encounter. I had the +sensation of seeing light for the first time! For hitherto, as I +have tried to explain, though it has been necessary to speak in +terms of sight, I have done so only by a metaphor, and it was not +really by vision that I became acquainted with the scene I have +described. But now I saw, and saw pure light! And yet not only saw, +but, as I thought apprehended it with the other senses, both with +those we know and with others of which we have not yet dreamt. I +heard light, I tasted and touched it, it enveloped and embraced me; +I swam in it as in an element, wafted and washed and luxuriantly +lapped. Pure light, and nothing else! No objects, at first! It was +only by degrees, and as the first intoxication subsided, that I +began to be aware of anything but the medium itself. I saw then +that I was standing at what seemed to be a window, looking out over +the scene I had just left But how changed it was! The river now, +like a blue and golden snake, ran through a sunny champaign bright +with flowers; above it hung a cloudless summer sky; and the happy +souls went leaping in and out like dolphins on a calm day in the +Mediterranean. On all this I gazed with inexpressible delight; but +as I looked an extraordinary thing occurred. The flowery plain +before me seemed to globe itself into a sphere; the blue river +clasped it like a girdle; for a moment it hung before me like a +star, then opened out and split into a thousand more, and these +again into others and yet others, till a whole heaven of stars was +revolving about me in the most wonderful dance-measure you can +conceive, infinitely complex, but never for a moment confused, for +the stars were of various colours, more beautiful far than any of +ours, and by these, as they crossed and intertwined in exquisite +harmonies, the threads of the intricate figure were kept +distinct.</p> + +<p>"What I was looking upon, I knew, was the same heaven that our +astronomers describe; only I was privileged actually to perceive +the movements they can only infer and predict. For here on earth +our faculties are proportioned to our needs, and our apprehension +of time and change is measured by units too small for us to be able +to embrace by sense the large and spacious circuits of the stars. +But I, in my then condition, had powers commensurate with all +existence; so that not only could I follow with the eye the coils +of that celestial morrice, but in each one of the whirling orbs, as +they approached or receded in the dance, I could trace, so far as I +was minded, the course of its secular history; whole series of +changes and transformations such as we laboriously infer, from +fossils and rocks and hard unmalleable things, being there (as +though petrifaction were reversed and solidest things made fluid) +unrolled before me, molten and glowing and swift, in a stream of +torrential evolution whose moments were centuries. Wonderful it +was, and strange, to see the first trembling film creep like a +mantle over a globe of fire, shiver, and break, and form again, and +gradually harden and cohere, now crushed into ridges and pits, now +extended into plains, and tossing the hissing seas from bed to bed, +as the levels of the viscous surface rose and fell. Wonderful, too, +when the crust was formed and life became possible, how everywhere, +in wet or dry, hot or cold alike, wherever footing could be found, +came up and flourished and decayed things that root and things that +move, winged or finned or legged, creeping, flying, running, +breeding, in mud or sand, in jungle, forest, and marsh, pursuing +and pursued, devouring and devoured, pairing, contending, killing, +things huge beyond belief, mammoth and icthyosaurus, things minute +and numerous past the power of calculation, coming and going as +they could find space, species succeeding to species, and crowding +every point and vantage for life on the heaving tumultuous bosom of +eddying worlds.</p> + +<p>"Wonderful it was, but terrible, too; for what struck me with a +kind of chill, even while I was wrapt in admiration, was the fact +that though everything was in constant change, and in the change +there was clearly an order and routine, yet I could not detect +anything that seemed like purpose. Direction there was, but not +direction to an end; for the end was no better than the beginning, +it was only different; the idea of Good, in short, did not apply. +And this fact, which was striking enough in the case of the +phenomena I have described, made itself felt with even more +insistence when I turned to consider the course of human history. +For that too I saw unrolled before me, not only on our own, but on +innumerable other worlds, in various phases and in various forms, +both those which we know, and others of which we have no +conception, and which I am now quite unable to recall. Men I saw +housing in caves, or on piles in swamps and lakes, dwellers in +wagons and tents, hunters, or shepherds under the stars, men of the +mountain, men of the plain, of the river-valley and the coast, +nomad tribes, village tribes, cities, kingdoms, empires, wars and +peace, politics, laws, manners, arts and sciences. Yet in all this, +so far as I could observe, although, through all vacillations, +there appeared to be a steady trend in a definite direction, there +was nothing to indicate what we call purpose. Men, I saw, had ideas +about Good, but these ideas of theirs, though they were part of the +efficient causes of events, were in no sense the explanation of the +process. There was no explanation, for there was no final cause, no +purpose, end, or justification at all. Man, like nature, was the +plaything of a blind fate. The idea of Good had no application.</p> + +<p>"The horror I felt as this truth (for so I thought it) was borne +in upon me was proportioned to my previous delight. I had now but +one desire, to escape, even though it were only back to what I had +left. And as the Angel-Boys in 'Faust' cry out to Pater Seraphicus +for release, when they can no longer bear the sights they see +through his eyes, so I, in my anguish, cried, 'Let me out! Let me +out!' And instantly I found myself standing again at the foot of +the tower, in that land of twilight, silence, and infinite space, +with the souls going down the river, in and out, in and out, +futile, trivial, tedious, monotonous, and vain. Looking up, I saw +written over the door from which I had emerged, and which was +opposite to that by which I had entered, words whose sense was:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>Eye hath not +seen</i>.'</span><br> + + +<p>"I walked round the Tower, and found a third door facing the +river; and over that was written:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>Turris +scientiae</i>.'</span><br> + + +<p>"But all these doors were now closed; nor indeed, had they been +open, should I have felt any inclination to renew the experience +from which I had escaped. I therefore turned away sadly enough and +made my way along the bank towards the second tower.</p> + +<p>"Over the door of this was written in the same language as +before:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>I am the Ear; come into me and +hear</i>.'</span><br> + + +<p>"The door was open, and I went in, this time with some +apprehension, but with still more curiosity and hope. No sooner was +I within than I was overwhelmed by an experience analogous to that +which had greeted me in the Tower of Sight, but even more +ravishingly sweet. This time what I felt was the sensation of pure +sound: sound, not merely heard, but, as before in the case of +light, apprehended at once by every avenue of sense, and folding +and sustaining, as it seemed, my whole being in a clear and buoyant +element of tone. It was only by degrees that out of this absolute +essence of sheer sound distinctions of rhythm and pitch began to +appear, and to assume definite musical form. The theme at first was +pastoral and sweet, suggestive of rustling grasses and murmuring +reeds, interwoven with which was an exquisite lilting tune, the +song of the souls as they sped down the river. But one by one other +elements crept into the strain; it increased in volume and variety +of tone, in complexity of rhythm and tune, till it grew at length +into a symphony so august, so solemn, and so profound, that there +is nothing I know of in our music here to which I can fitly compare +it. It reminded me, however, of Wagner more than of any other +composer, in the richness of its colour, the insistence and force +of its rhythms, its fragments of ineffable melody, and above all, +its endless chromatic sequences, for ever suggesting but never +actually reaching the full close which I knew not whether most to +dread or to desire. The music itself was wonderful enough; but more +wonderful still was my clear perception, while I listened, that +what was being presented to me now through the medium of sound was +precisely the same world which I had seen from the Tower of Sight. +Every phenomenon, and sequence of phenomena, which I had witnessed +there, I recognized now, in appropriate musical form. The +foundation of all was a great basal rhythm, given out on something +that throbbed like drums, terrible in its persistence and yet +beautiful too; and this, I knew, represented the mechanical basis +of the world, the processes which science knows as 'laws of motion' +and the like, but which really, as I then perceived, might more +aptly be described as the more inveterate of Nature's habits. Upon +this foundation, which varied, indeed, but by almost imperceptible +gradations, was built up an infinitely complex structure of +intermediate parts, increasing from below upwards in freedom, ease +and beauty of form, till high above all floated on the ear snatches +of melody, haunting, poignant, meltingly tender, or, as it might +be, martial and gay exquisite in themselves, yet never complete, +fragments rather, as it seemed, of some theme yet to come, which +they had hardly time to suggest before they were torn, as it were, +from their roots and sent drifting down the stream, to reappear in +new settings, richer combinations, and fairer forms; and these, I +knew, were symbols of the lives and deaths of conscious beings.</p> + +<p>"As this character of the music and its representative meaning +grew gradually clearer to me, there began to mingle with my delight +a certain feeling of anguish. For while, on the one hand, I +passionately desired to hear given out in full the theme which as +yet had been only suggested in fragmentary hints, on the other, I +knew that with its appearance the music would come to a close, just +at the moment when its cessation would involve the keenest +revulsion of feeling. And this moment, I felt, was rapidly +approaching. The rhythm grew more and more rapid, the instruments +scaled higher and higher, the tension of chromatic progressions was +strained to what seemed breaking point, till suddenly, with an +effect as though a stream, long pent in a gorge, had escaped with a +burst into broad sunny meadows, the whole symphony broke away into +the major key, and high and clear, chanted, as it seemed, on ten +thousand trumpets, silver, æthereal, and exquisitely sweet +for all their resonant clangour, I heard the ultimate melody of +things. For a moment only; for, as I had foreseen, with the +emergence of that air, the music came abruptly to a close; and I +found myself sitting bathed in tears at the door of the tower on +the opposite side to that by which I had entered; and there once +more was the land of silence, twilight, and infinite space, with +the souls going down the river, in and out, in and out, futile, +trivial, tedious, monotonous and vain!</p> + +<p>"As soon as I had recovered myself, I looked up and saw written +over the door the inscription:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>Ear hath not +heard</i>.'</span><br> + + +<p>"And going round to the side facing the river, I saw there +inscribed:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>Turris Artis</i>?'</span><br> + + +<p>"Whereupon, full of perplexity, I made my way down towards the +third tower, reflecting, as I went; in a curious passion at once of +hope and fear, 'Neither this, then, nor that, neither Eye nor Ear, +has given me what I sought. Each is a symbol; but this, as it +seems, a more perfect symbol than that; for it, at least, is +Beauty, and the other was only Power. But is there, then, nothing +but symbols? Or shall I, in one of these towers, shall I perhaps +find the thing that is symbolized?'</p> + +<p>"By this time I had reached the third tower, and over the door +facing me I saw written:</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"'<i>I am the Heart; come into me +and feel</i>.'</span><br> + + +<p>"I entered without hesitation, and this time I was met by an +experience even stranger and more delightful than before, but also, +I fear, more indescribable. At first, I was aware of nothing but a +pure feeling, which was not of any particular sense, (as, before, +of sight and hearing,) but was rather, I think, the general feeling +of Life itself, the kind of diffused sensation of well-being one +has in health, underlying all particular activities. In this +sensation I seemed, as before, to be lapped, as in an element; but +this time the feeling did not pass. On the contrary, I found, when +I came to myself, that I actually was in the river, leaping along +with the other souls in such an ecstasy of physical delight as I +have never felt before or since. Such, at least, was my first +impression; but gradually it changed into something which I despair +of rendering in words, for indeed I can hardly render it in my own +thoughts. Conceive, however, that as, according to the teaching of +science, every part of matter is affected by every other, insomuch +that, as they say, the fall of an apple disturbs the balance of the +universe; so, in my experience then, (and this, I believe, is +really true) all souls were intimately connected by spiritual ties. +Nothing that happened in one but was somehow or other, more or less +obscurely, reflected in the rest, so that all were so closely +involved and embraced in a network of fine relations that they +formed what may be compared to a planetary system, sustained in +their various orbits by force of attraction and repulsion, +distinguished into greater and lesser constellations, and +fulfilling in due proportion their periods and paths under the +control of spiritual laws. Of this system I was myself a member; +about me were grouped some of my dearest friends; and beyond and +around stretched away, like infinite points of light, in a clear +heaven of passion, the world of souls. I speak, of course, in a +figure, for what I am describing in terms of space, I apprehended +through the medium of feeling; and by 'feeling' I mean all degrees +of affection, from extreme of love to extreme of hate. For hate +there was, as well as love, the one representing repulsion, the +other attraction; and by their joint influence the whole system was +sustained. It was not, however, in equilibrium; at least, not in +stable equilibrium. There was a trend, as I soon became aware, +towards a centre. The energy of love was constantly striving to +annihilate distance and unite in a single sphere the scattered +units that were only kept apart by the energy of hate. This effort +I felt proceeding in every particular group, and, more faintly, +from one group to another: I felt it with an intensity at once of +pain and of rapture, such as I cannot now even imagine, much less +describe; and most of all did I feel it within the limits of my own +group, of which some of those now present were members. But within +this group in particular I was aware of an extraordinary +resistance. One of its members, I thought, (I mention no names,) +steadily refused either to form a closer union with the rest of us, +or to enter into more intimate relations with other groups. This +resistance I felt in the form of an indescribable tension, a +tension which grew more and more acute, till suddenly the whole +system seemed to collapse, and I found myself in darkness and +alone, being dragged down, down, by the cord which attached me to +my body. At the same time there was a roaring in my ears, and I saw +my body, as I thought, like a fearful wild beast with open jaws; it +swallowed me down, and I awoke with a shock to find myself in the +operator's room, with a voice in my ears which somehow sounded like +Audubon's, though I afterwards ascertained it was really that of +the assistant, uttering the rather ridiculous words, 'I don't see +why!'</p> + +<p>"That, then, was the end of my dream, and I have never since +been able to continue it, and to discover what was written over the +other doors of the third tower, or what lay within the towers I did +not enter. So that I have had to go on ever since with the +knowledge I then acquired, that whatever Reality may ultimately be, +it is in the life of the affections, with all its confused tangle +of loves and hates, attractions, repulsions, and, worst of all, +indifferences, it is in this intricate commerce of souls that we +may come nearest to apprehending what perhaps we shall never wholly +apprehend, but the quest of which alone, as I believe, gives any +significance to life, and makes it a thing which a wise and brave +man will be able to persuade himself it is right to endure."</p> + +<p>With that I ended; and Wilson was just beginning to explain to +me that my dream had no real significance, but was just a confused +reproduction of what I must have been thinking about before I took +the æther, when we were interrupted by the arrival of tea. In +the confusion that ensued Audubon came over to me and said: "It was +curious your dreaming that about me, for it is exactly the way I +should behave."</p> + +<p>"Of course it is," I replied, "and that, no doubt, is why I +dreamt it."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "you can say what you like, but I really do +<i>not</i> see why!" And with that the conversation I had to report +closed.</p> +<br> +<br> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12508 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |